You Won't See Me

So my last week at Westminster is officially over. On Tuesday I sat in the gallery for the House of Lords. I had been anxious to observe them live because they are a self-regulating body, although still active in the adversarial style of politics that Parliament does so well. Since the Speaker sits quietly and doesn’t call on those who may talk, the loudest and the quickest to their feet gets to speak. As the median age in the Lords is easily 20 or 30 years more than in the Commons, this isn’t usually that quick. I particularly felt for one ancient man who repeatedly leapt up at the pace of a wounded snail, only to be beaten by his slightly younger colleagues.

Wednesday morning was our one-on-one meetings with our sponsor, a member of the Lords who had previously been in the House of Commons for over 40 years. All of us interns had been meeting with him every Wednesday morning for the last ten weeks. He is a very kind man and chalk full of wisdom and history and anecdotes. I told him and his assistant[1] how much I adored MP and that I had had a wonderful experience.

Also on Wednesday, I took notes at a meeting with MP, and sat scribbling furiously while she bawled them out for shady dealings in her constituency. One of the men was quite defensive and produced an agenda from another meeting that declared that the company had been providing the correct financial statements. MP shouted, “I could show you a piece of paper that said that there was a whale in the Thames, but that wouldn’t make it true, would it?!” In my printed notes, I wrote, “[MP] was skeptical.” This was the second to last meeting I’d go to with her, and also the second to last meeting in which there was a great deal of shouting. She doesn't always shout, but MP knows that those are the meetings that will be of greatest interest to me. Also, as I’ve mentioned before, she is a lovely woman, but she absolutely loves to start fights. It’s quite refreshing to go to meetings and not hear all the regular political-ese that seeks to avoid what the meeting is actually about. Politics is naturally adversarial and putting it all on the table right away is MP’s unique style.

I stayed late on Wednesday finishing up research and letters, as I wanted to be available to respond to any draft changes on Thursday (my last day). And on Thursday, I gave MP a card and a thank you gift. The card mentioned on it that she should think of me if a spot ever opens up on her staff. She agreed wholeheartedly and said that I should definitely check in after I graduate and to keep in touch in the meantime. I think we both got a little choked up. Later, she took me up on the roof of the palace. Since she has a dodgy knee I knew how much it hurt her to climb up to the roof. To be honest, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the gesture. Also as a thank you present, MP got me a beautiful silver Portcullis necklace from the House of Lords gift shop. It’s basically the prettiest thing ever (when I got to my hostel in Cardiff, I only put two things in the tiny room locker: my computer and that necklace).

Photography outside the tourist areas of Westminster is frowned upon, so I spent my last few days sneaking pictures down halls and through windows. Very few of them turned out well, but I’m glad to have them. A hall might not be very interesting to most, but when you’ve walked down them happily for ten weeks, they become friends.[2]

I’m loath to forget all the eccentric habits I developed over the last two and a half months. For example, whenever I had to fetch someone from the Central Lobby to bring them to MP for a meeting, I would always tell them the same thing to make conversation: That yes this place is a maze, and really I’ve just figured the layout a week ago, and that I had just discovered an amazing shortcut, so that is the way we’ll go! (I really just took them the same way every time, but as they were different people, they had no idea. I think it gave their experience a little extra drama.) 

Other habits included saying Howdy to anyone that MP introduced me to as “her American intern.” It started out as an accident, but everyone seemed to like it. I also got into the habit of saying Cheers. I had no idea what a handy word this can be. At its heart, Cheers says, “I acknowledge your existence.” At first I tried to emulate the British, but then I just started saying it for a great deal of things: thank you; you’re welcome; yes, I would like some tea; I would be happy to make you some tea; here you go; you just held the door for me; I just held the door for you; I love you; etc.

Did I ever tell you about the food? Strangers dining hall at in Westminster Palace offers a variety of delicacies, each more abysmal than the last. Lest anyone worry that Members of Parliament are glutting themselves on exotic morsels, let me just tell you that the entrees I tried physically made me sad. The fish and chips tasted like rejection; the jerk chicken was a metaphor for loneliness.

British food is universally regarded as terrible, but it seemed like the dining hall there was subsidized for taste as well as price. I generally stuck to simple items: a pre-packaged sandwich fittingly called, “Just Chicken,” a satsuma, a cup of tea. Surprisingly though, Strangers’ kitchen could produce delicious puddings. I frequently rounded out my sad, bland lunch with a slice of Victoria Sponge or Chocolate Lava cake.

My last night in Westminster, I finally did a Houses of Parliament pub crawl. A friend on my corridor brought me with him to the Lord’s pub and also the infamous Sports and Social Club.[3] Sports was uncomfortably crammed with old politicians and young staffers. Shouting my order to the bartender, he asked me what part of the States I was from. He then told me: “I had a flatmate from Oregon… he hated it there.” I told him that his flatmate sounded like a pinhead.

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[1] As I mentioned in my Lords post, Peers don’t get staff. However, our sponsor is so used to having an assistant from his years in the Commons that he co-opts the services of his former staffer, who helps him out of the goodness of her heart even though she has a new MP boss. She is a really lovely person and when I saw her at Sports on my last evening, she told me that I should contact her if I ever want to come back and work for an MP full-time.

[2] Yes, I made human friends too.

[3] It's infamous because MP-on-MP fighting has sometimes broken out here. Recently the PM allegedly did some red-faced, finger-pointing at one of the rogue, anti-Lords Reform Torys in Sports and it got brought up during PMQs (Prime Minister's Questions time).