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Fresh faces

Deborah McGurran | 17:56 UK time, Wednesday, 26 May 2010

barclay.jpg


Well, well, well, we have got a keen new intake.

Measuring up to their ambition would make anyone feel positively jaded.

Take Steve Barclay, the successful Conservative candidate for North East Cambridgeshire duly elected as MP, as his website declares.

He has joined the ranks of freshers in Westminster after studying history at Cambridge's , qualifying as a lawyer, serving as a Second Lieutenant in the and working in financial crime prevention for Barclays Bank.

Oh and did I forget to mention, he's a rugby player. Born into a rugby playing family (dad's a coach), his position is openside flanker - of course you know that's the number seven position - which means, I am reliably informed by the Rugy Football Union's website; "It should never be in the nature of No7 ever to give in, give up or settle for second best and this mental strength gives him a definite advantage."

Is that all?

"I think it's important that MP's have a business background, we need people with experience, people who want to be here and are engaged with the democratic process," he says.

It's a theme echoed by Michael Ellis, now Conservative member for Northampton North. He's had a criminal practice at the bar but has given that up, to sit in the House.

"Advocacy has a lot in common with working as an MP here," he tells me "so it stands me in good stead but I think politicians have to be 110% committed, so I shall just be doing the one job now."

Intriguingly, he is an expert on law relating to the monarchy; "just something I was interested in".

Naturally.

Whereas a penchant for opera is what enthuses Iain Stewart, the new Conservative MP for Milton Keynes South.

After studying Politics at Exeter University he became a head hunter for a recruitment agency and has been fighting for the seat for a decade.

"The is a key issue," he says "it's reached the size it was planned for and there need to be a debate by the people and politicians who are there now as to what happens in the future, people there have a very postitive attitude".

And, so too, it seems, do the new intake into the Commons, who have given up thriving careers for public service.

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