Bassetlaw's MP has described himself as a "bit of a street fighter" after a week in which he again hit the headlines over his views on the cost of living. Brendan Clarke-Smith, who has represented the area since 2019, says he feels well placed to discuss issues such as household spending and the welfare state given that he grew up on the Clifton Estate - an area that he says made him a Conservative.
It is not unusual to meet an MP who has just hit the headlines over controversial comments, with our politicians now becoming increasingly outspoken on social media. But it is perhaps rarer to meet an MP who is reeling from a social media storm over a seemingly innocuous subject - baked beans.
When Brendan Clarke-Smith, 42, was named the Conservative MP for Bassetlaw in 2019, he was one of several new faces across the country who quickly became recognisable as one of those to have overturned Labour's 'Red Wall'. It was a story perhaps best epitomised in Bassetlaw, the area where the swing from Labour to the Conservatives was the country's largest, but where there had not been a Conservative MP since the 1920s.
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But over the last few days, Mr Clarke-Smith has instead been in the news after advising people alarmed by the rising price of Heinz Baked Beans to switch to Tesco's version. Why was it that Mr Clarke-Smith, who was previously a teacher in Romania and an elected member of Nottingham City Council, chose to touch on this topic?
It is a subject he immediately turned to when we met him at The Glasshouse in Retford on Friday (May 19), where he joked that he might order some baked beans. In the end, he had a sausage sandwich.
It is not just on baked beans that Mr Clarke-Smith has offered his opinion in recent months, having suggested in December that people earning over £30,000 whilst using a food bank should be "learning how to budget and prioritise." When asked why MPs such as himself and Ashfield's Lee Anderson regularly decide to make such comments, Mr Clarke-Smith said: "It's a reflection of the people we represent.
"We're down to earth normal people who had normal jobs and then we became politicians. It's not to everybody's liking, there's this very stiff view of what a politician is like, how you speak, the issues you talk about - especially as a Conservative as well. We try and bring this more working class flavour to it, we talk about things such as welfare.
"Nobody can accuse us of being privileged, obviously as MPs we're well-paid and we accept that, but we're very much normal people as well and we feel a bit of a responsibility to step in and say when we don't think something is right. We are better placed to do that than colleagues who may have had a more affluent background."
In terms of his own background, Mr Clarke-Smith says growing up on the Clifton Estate has shaped many of the views he holds today. He said: "You had that sense of community there and I know people think all sorts of things about Clifton, but for me it's an estate where 90% of houses are owner occupied now.
"It's a great success story of Margaret Thatcher's policy, that's what probably made me a Conservative really. My dad was from The Meadows, my mum grew up in Forest Fields way.
"When they moved to Clifton and they'd got indoor toilets and three double bedrooms, it was a big deal in the 1950s. It's that kind of thing we need now again - how are the Conservatives going to make my life better?
"We've got a particular challenge with young people. We just need to make sure we can appeal to the next generation of Conservatives."
For now though, Mr Clarke-Smith's efforts will be going into retaining his Bassetlaw seat at the general election expected next year. In terms of Labour's candidate, he will be going up against Jo White, the Deputy Leader of Bassetlaw District Council and the wife of Mr Clarke-Smith's predecessor, John Mann.
The election will be held following an incredibly turbulent period for the Conservatives, something reflected by Mr Clarke-Smith having served as a minister for just three-and-a-half months - but under three different Prime Ministers. Despite the turmoil, he is confident that he can hold on to Bassetlaw, as long as his Government makes progress on one issue in particular.
He said: "If immigration continues the way it is, I won't be here and a lot of my colleagues won't be here, because people are genuinely frustrated and they want something done." Bassetlaw is a landlocked area with very low immigration, so why does Mr Clarke-Smith view this as such a priority for its residents?
He explained: "I would link it to taking back control. Taking back control isn't just about immigration, it's a general view of having control over things." Mr Clarke-Smith also claimed that despite Bassetlaw's low immigration figures, the picture nationally has "knock-on effects" in the district in terms of access to services and house prices.
But the MP also stresses that immigration brings a wealth of benefits and enrichment to society, himself having a Romanian wife who works at Bassetlaw Hospital. Immigration aside though, Mr Clarke-Smith says this will only be "part of the story" in retaining his seat.
He says Worksop has "died as a destination" and recent levelling up funding announced for the town, being spent on a redevelopment of its Priory Centre that will include tenpin bowling, is about shifting the focus from retail to leisure. The MP also hopes it will act as a driver for private investment and business to come back into towns like Worksop and Retford.
Overall, combined with jobs expected to be created by major projects like the STEP fusion plant in nearby West Burton, Brendan Clarke-Smith hopes that a sense of "pride" will be restored across North Nottinghamshire, something which he feels was lost with the end of mining. A large part of this, he says, will be making sure that Bassetlaw does not "lose" its working-age population to nearby cities such as Nottingham, Doncaster and Sheffield.
The Conservative Party only gained three Bassetlaw seats at the recent local elections, but Mr Clarke-Smith says this still "bucked the national trend." Overall, he says that he is not "fatalistic" about Conservative prospects at the next election, believing that many of the party's 2019 voters did not vote in May and hoping that they will return to polling stations next year.
In the meantime, don't expect him to be any less forthright in his opinions. He added: "I do like sticking my neck out, I think we are used to having more outspoken MPs in this patch so it does follow a bit of a tradition. I am a bit of a street fighter, I like to give as good as I get and it's part of my style."
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