As Lady Olga Maitland, Conservative member for Sutton and Cheam, awaited the second reading of her anti-knives bill, it remained to be seen how long she could avoid political meltdown, wrote Robert Chalmers in the Observer on 14 January 1996. ‘A recent poll found Maitland, now 50, well placed in a competitive field for the title of most despised MP.’
The first time she remembered inspiring ‘mass loathing’ was during a visit to a Liberal convention in Harrogate. She encountered ‘a wall of hate’. Today, doing a round of her Sutton constituents, a tenant handed his MP a letter detailing the force required to arrest his schizophrenic neighbour who had issued death threats. This included at least 18 police officers, ambulance personnel and six firefighters. ‘God!’ whooped Maitland to her constituent. ‘You’re joking!’ Afterwards she mused: ‘All those people for one little nutter.’
