In the garden of a cafe in the middle of her Brighton Pavilion constituency, Caroline Lucas is eight hours into her bombshell day: the country’s only Green MP has just announced that she won’t stand again for election. She went from a squeaky, 1,200, didn’t-see-that-coming majority in 2010 to a don’t-bother-counting-them almost 20,000 majority in 2019, and has ascended to that very rare status with many of her constituents: it doesn’t matter whether or not you agree with her, you vote for her anyway. It would be rude not to: she works so hard and makes so much sense.
She has the very short hair of a person who doesn’t have time for hair, estimates that she works “75 or 80 hours a week” and looks harried but undefeated. I already knew she wasn’t going to stand again, obviously – that’s why I’m here. But I still can’t quite believe it, and keep opening my mouth to start a question that turns out to be nothing but “but”: “But you’re an institution … But your constituents love you … But you actually make things happen; who else is going to do that? … But there’s so much still to do.”
