Putting words in her mouth
My MP voted for Ed Miliband in the Labour leadership election. I voted for David. I also worked on David’s campaign while my MP pressed the flesh for Ed – it was an interesting time! She took much delight in Ed’s win. My revenge takes the form of using chunks of David’s speeches when drafting columns, quotes and speeches for my MP… She has no idea she’s parroting the wrong brother.

Word imperfect
We recently had quite a cocky work experience student in our office. One day, while sitting at his desk bored out of his skull – I’d run out of work for him – he started leafing through a booklet that I had brought in called Labour: A Year In Review. I think it had been mailed to most Labour members. I am not an Ed Miliband fan, so was delighted when he exclaimed: “Ha! There’s a typo on the first page.” And he was right. In a message from our ‘esteemed’ leader there was the following sentence: “It’s wthe right time to join up and be part something.” Well done, Ed!

Coq-up au vin
After a hard day, I went to a bar in Parliament with some other researchers. Sadly, as I’m prone to do every now and again, I had a few too many. On leaving, I returned to the office to pick up my bag, and couldn’t resist a quick look at my emails. I noticed one from a constituent who was complaining that my MP hadn’t had a reply from the Courts Service about an issue she’d raised at a surgery three weeks earlier. This constituent is pretty annoying. Under the influence, I sent the following response: “Dear Ms _____, I will forward you the response when it has been received by my fair hand. Until then, you must wait like the proverbial man waiting at the proverbial traffic light waiting for the proverbial green man while the proverbial red bus passes by. Best wishes, _____” How on Earth I’m still in my job, I do not know.

Where’s Wally?
My MP recently ruffled some feathers at a foreign policy-oriented all-party parliamentary group by suggesting that if a certain recalcitrant nation didn’t change its ways, we should argue for suspending it from the Commonwealth. It’s a reasonable punishment – only, they’re not in the Commonwealth.

Devon help us!
One of my colleagues recently went on a lads’ weekend away to Devon, all shots and trashy regional clubs. He came back and gleefully regaled us with a story of being at an infamous nightclub, where he’d seen a guy, who was clearly too old to be there, getting slung out for being too drunk. My colleague had been overjoyed when he realised that it was a politician of some fame.

Tags: Ed Miliband, Issue 43, Researchers' Stories