Everywoman by Jess Phillipps

Author:Jess Phillipps [Phillipps, Jess]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786330772
Google: GlVavgAACAAJ
Publisher: Hutchinson
Published: 2017-11-15T23:28:45.884462+00:00

The elation I felt at winning my seat in the 2015 general election is very clear when watching the video of my victory. Bear in mind that it was 6 a.m. and I had been awake for at least twenty-four hours. I’d done nothing but eat crisps and drink coffee all day. I was wired. As the amount of votes I received was read out, I bent double, hanging my head and my hair to the floor like a rag doll. As I reappear to the crowd, I am laughing raucously.

The returning officer continued to read out the results after mine. It’s a bit like a wedding, where you hear people’s full names for the first time and have a bit of a chuckle at them: ‘Jonathan Alexander Marvin Hemming’. They are invariably not the names you have called them for the previous few months of bitter campaigning. I can’t remember if I was particularly aware of it at the time, but when I looked again at the footage, it hit me. In the line-up of dutiful-looking candidates, I am a shock of colour in bright emerald green with a huge necklace bought for a fiver in the Topshop sale that I felt at the time was reminiscent of something Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, would wear. I stand out in the row of suits, proudly beaming, the only woman on the ballot.

As the names of the minority parties and their handfuls of votes were being read out, I had a moment of panic: was I supposed to go along the row and speak to each person? Or was I supposed to just skate past them all rudely? I hadn’t been trained how to commiserate with my opponents, some of whom I utterly detested and some I really liked. As I was called to the stage to make my victory speech, I look a bit like a kid at a prize-giving, slightly bewildered. My shoulders are raised as if I am walking on glass, waiting for a crack to appear. I seem childlike.

I shook the hand of the UKIP chap standing next to me, who was actually really gracious and congratulatory. I had never come across him in the campaign; you don’t really need to campaign locally if you have a personality like Farage on the telly to do it for you. Next I came to the previous MP, John Hemming. He was reasonably gracious at first, congratulating me, but it didn’t last long before his paternalistic streak showed itself. As I was shaking his hand, he started to tell me what to do, as if he was the big man in the know and I was some feeble pretender. He said, ‘You must remember to thank the returning officer,’ or something along those lines. On the video on Sky News, all that is audible of this, the briefest of exchanges, is me saying loudly, ‘I know what to do, thanks,’ in the best Birmingham accent and the attitude of a victorious broad who just beat him in the competition of his life.

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