June 25, 2020
This is the first interview in our ‘Meet our new MPs’ series, where you will have the opportunity to meet Dr Kieran Mullan, MP for Crewe and Nantwich.
In 2019 we gained 58 new seats. The MPs who represent those seats are now the future of our Party. But in order to secure their future they will need our support in their first year.
We’re committed to safeguarding these MPs. So we wanted to give you the chance to meet many of them for the first time and support our efforts to back them. If you're able to, we hope you’ll consider donating to secure our new MPs.
Before being elected I worked on programmes that compare how hospitals perform across the NHS to try and find the best performers and learn from them. I did this as well as still working on the front line in A&E. I have been doing things away from the front line for a long time but I also thought it was important to always carry on looking after patients. I saw in the policy work I did that it is too easy to lose sight of what is really going on when you stop seeing patients.
I think it was inevitable that I would end up doing a job like medicine. My Mum was a nurse and my Dad a policeman so you could say public service is in my blood! I grew up hearing about what they did and it taught me that it is making a difference that means you can go home of an evening holding your head high.
Thank you! Thank you for staying home and thank you for your messages of support. Staff really noticed and cared. Staying home meant the NHS was not overwhelmed. I had always intended to try and fit in some occasional time on the front line once I had found my stride as an MP. But when I saw the images coming in from Italy of their health service totally overwhelmed, I knew I had to go back to help during this crisis. Luckily we never reached that situation here and we can thank your readers and the rest of the British public for that.
Early on in medical school I found I was increasingly drawn to trying to understand the causes and not just the symptoms of what brings so many patients into contact with the NHS. Whether it be a mental health crisis, drink or drug addiction, loneliness. But not just from a traditional public health perspective. You can’t just put in place measures to tackle these things. You need to ask, why are these measures needed for some people and not others in the first place? I think it is because of family and societal factors and those two themselves interact enormously. I wanted to really get at these root causes.
What makes me think I’d make a good MP? Well I guess I am still waiting to find out if I am! My constituents will need to decide by the time of the next election. Though I would say the listening skills and experience of public service will help. I have also been a school governor and a volunteer policeman.
I am passionate about supporting families and strengthening communities. This is a pretty encompassing cause and it involves everything from criminal justice, to welfare, tax and public services. That is what makes it so challenging to get right.
Someone out on a canvassing session with me being told by a union shop steward he was telling everyone to vote Conservative was pretty encouraging! I think we knew then we were on a strong footing. Though of course you always worry.
It was pretty good when we saw the voting ballots being piled up in the middle of the counting area. At very best I had hoped for a majority of a few thousand. When we began trying to count the final piles ahead of the announcement we were guessing how many ballots were in each pile based on the rough expected turnout. We just simply couldn’t believe that the only sensible figure was giving me a majority upward of 5,000. But it was the only thing that made sense. To get a majority of over 8,000 in the end was amazing.
It was also great to have Sajid Javid visit during the campaign. I took him to a family owned globally exporting ice cream van manufacturer based in Crewe. After a great walk around speaking to staff, yes, you’ve guessed it, we ended up in an ice cream van dishing out Mr Whippy!
The Party is nothing without our members. Our members going out campaigning and donating is the only way we win elections. Nothing can replace their support. Often a small number of vital supporters are what everything rests on. I know that was the case in my campaign. But even the smaller contributions of time or financial support add up. You, our members, earned this victory. I would encourage you to think about getting involved if you haven’t before. My campaign volunteers helped directly to deliver our result and so they shared directly in how I felt that night – proud, elated and tired!
Commenting, Therese Coffey, Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions, said:
“Corbyn’s Pension Tax will see ten million savers facing a huge bill forcing them to delay their retirement for almost three and a half years.
“This is just one of the ways a Corbyn government would hammer hardworking people on top of his plans to hike up taxes by £2,400 a year, as well as the cost of his plan for unlimited immigration and the chaos of 2020 being dominated by two more referendums – one on Brexit and another on Scottish independence.
“Only Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party can get Brexit done with a deal, get parliament working again and turbocharge our economy to unleash Britain’s potential.”
Read more about how this Pension Tax will impact millions of savers (PDF)
