The Palace

"I get that you're a porous sponge, and that's lovely, but I could throw you in grease or I could throw you in water or oil or vinegar or some other kind of pond… any kind of pond, and you could soak it up. The question is, where do you want me to throw you?" –My MP

The Palace of Westminster is magnificent. There are halls of books, halls of statues, halls of busts, halls of portraits, staircases to nowhere… it’s obviously dripping with history. How lucky I am to have this opportunity to conquer this rabbits’ warren!

The young lady who was put in charge of orienting us got rather lost, prompting the question of how long she had worked there? Two years. She mentioned that there is minimal signage in the Westminster Palace, because they don’t want terrorists to be able to find their way around. Yet again, terrorists make everyone’s life a little bit more difficult.

My MP (I'm just going to call her "MP") was delayed in her district on Tuesday, and as I found out later, I’m her only London staff. She keeps her four full-time staffers in her constituency, whom she is stalwartly devoted to (the constituency, not her staff, although she likes them fine).

Waiting for her to get into town, I got tickets to the House gallery and watched the debate on the Queen’s Speech, in particular on the Government’s international policy. The Queen’s Speech is a yearly speech, much like the State of the Union Address, except she doesn’t write it. The Queen’s Government uses it to present their broad policy plan, and the Queen’s Loyal Opposition spends the rest of the year criticizing that plan. It’s great fun to watch, and probably quite fun to participate. The rhetoric gets spirited and they mingled their insults across the aisle with the standard courtesies. A pamphlet informed me that the aisle in the House of Commons gallery is exactly two sword-lengths apart to discourage dueling.

MP is a warm, absent-minded (seeming) woman. I know I’m not the only one to think so at first because at least one person per committee thought that she was a guest speaker instead of a Member of Parliament. There are hundreds of peers, and she also just doesn’t seem like the average politician—she seems like someone’s aunt. This is all the more chilling when she turns to you and says, “Time to stop being the good guy,” with a big smile and hard eyes.

Over the course of the day I learned that she is very funny and intensely strategic. She also told me several times to “trust no one.” Moreover, MP would rather not perform any activity unnecessarily, including putting a key in the internal post to avoid walking to the other side of the Palace to deliver it by hand. (Naturally, I offered to take it, but she doesn’t want me to waste any energy either). She calls me “Lass,” and winked at me during the committee hearing. She is going to make this blog 35% more interesting—just you wait.

Case in point, other than accompanying her to multiple health committees and disease receptions, my first real task was to pinch milk packets from the Parliament cafeteria. I was directed to do it surreptitiously, but not sneakily. “Walk in there confidently, like you have a right to them, but don’t make a spectacle of yourself.” Whether you're stealing creamers or doing something actually meaningful—that’s just great life advice.