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.
