North-west Durham MP tipped by many as future party leader speaks candidly to the SKWAWKBOX on range of topics
Two years ago yesterday, the SKWAWKBOX published an exclusive interview with Laura Pidcock, the newly-elected Labour MP for North-West Durham that was to dominate much of the ‘mainstream’ news and commentary for weeks afterward.
Ms Pidcock had already come to attention with a powerful maiden speech in the Commons in which she described the way – intentionally, she felt – that Parliament, ‘reek[ing] of the Establishment and of power’, was set up to be ‘archaic’, sexist and ‘intimidating’ to women and working class MPs.
But her comments about how she saw her job in Parliament and especially her insistence that she had no interest in being friends with Tory MPs, of whom she said:
The idea that they’re not the enemy is simply delusional when you see the effect they have on people – a nation where lots of people live in a constant state of fear whether they even have enough to eat.”
The comments were greeted with huge enthusiasm by many people – and not only Labour members – who were sick to death of a Parliament in which many MPs seemed intent on proving that ‘they’re all the same’ and appeared to have more solidarity with each other than with the people they were meant to represent.
The article triggered a wave of media attention, with almost every ‘mainstream’ publication across the spectrum producing its own ‘take’ on Ms Pidcock’s comments – and a few conducting their own versions.
It also resulted in a wave of outraged pearl-clutching by so-called ‘centrist’ politicians and commentators who like the cosy status quo and tried to punish Laura Pidcock for daring to challenge it – often ignoring that she had been talking about Tory MPs and reacting as if she didn’t want to represent Tory voters in her constituency. Jess Phillips wrote one article, then decided that wasn’t enough and decided to be cosy with Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Laura Pidcock’s popularity among Labour’s majority left membership has only grown since 2017 and she now sits on Labour’s front bench as Shadow Minister for Labour, with a brief to revolutionise the working lives of this country’s ‘many’.
To mark two years since the shouldn’t-really-be-controversial interview, she has conducted a lengthy discussion on video with the SKWAWKBOX in which she talks about what has happened since and speaks frankly on a range of topics.
Those topics are as diverse as:
- the working class
- Tories – and whether she now sees any as ‘friend material’
- Brexit
- Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership
- the party’s deputy leadership and whether she would stand
- the party’s approaching trigger ballots
As well as her own vision, hopes and plans for the people of her constituency and the wider working-class community.
The first in the series of videos is scheduled to come online this evening and the discussion promises to be remarkable. Watch this space and spread the word.
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