Life After Parliament?

Following the results of the general election, several ex-MPs are forced to find something else to occupy their free time.

12:32 13 May 2015

Following the announcement of the results of the general election, several men and women, found themselves losing their parliamentary seat. Used to trod the corridors of power, they now have to find something else to occupy their free time. 

 

Former Labour MP for Watford Claire Ward, who lost her seat in 2010 after 13 years in Westminster, said: "Being an MP is very much a way of life. It's all-consuming, there's no escape from it, no matter what time of the day, where you are, any time of the year.

 

"From that point of view, you recognise that it's going to be a huge change, not just to your working life but to every aspect of it.

 

"Something that you feel very strongly about, and is part of you, to lose in that way is very much like a bereavement."

 

Andy Reed, who was Labour MP from 1997 to 2010, said: "You literally walk home from the town hall at four or five o'clock in the morning unemployed, and virtually everything that you knew, your emails, is shut down, locked out.

 

"You're given a brief opportunity over the weekend to go clear your Westminster office, which is probably the last thing you want to do after a gruelling six-week campaign."