Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Prisk, Mark (O2023.7) |
| Interviewee | Mark Prisk (MP) |
| Interviewer | Trish Goldsmith (TG) and Rod Lewis (RL) |
| Date | 17/11/2023 |
| Transcriber by | Freda Joshua (using Otter.AI for initial transcript) |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording No: O2023.7
Interviewee: Mark Prisk (MP)
Date: 17th November 2023
Venue: Valeside, Hertford
Interviewers: Trish Goldsmith (TG) and Rod Lewis (RL)
Transcriber: Freda Joshua (using Otter.AI for initial transcript)
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
TG: Yes, it's Friday the 17th of November 2023. We are at Valeside, Hertford. I'm Trish Goldsmith, and we have the pleasure of the company of Mr Mark Prisk and Rod Lewis. Both Rod and I are from the Oral History Group, Mark Prisk is our interviewee, and very welcome to you, Mark. Perhaps you can start off by saying where you grew up, and I know it wasn’t in Hertford
MP: No it wasn't. So I come from way far west, from Camborne down in Cornwall, 100 miles west of Exeter. And I can tell you in the 1960s and 70s, 100 miles west of Exeter was a good three-and-a-half to four hours on a very slow, single carriage A30. So Hertford was a long way away in that sense, although I do, I think I'm sure like a lot of people, I think as a child, I always associated Hertford with My Fair Lady and the fact that hurricanes hardly ever happen here [laughter]. But as a child, yes, it's very much a West Country person.
TG: Right. And so could you sort of take us through how you actually ended up in Hertford?
MP: Yes, sure. So I went to Truro School and then on to the University of Reading to do Land Management. I had an aspiration when I was a teenager to go into politics, but my parents said, ‘Ok, that's a chancy old game. You may not make it, you may make it, but you may only do it for five years or whatever, so have something up your sleeve’, which was good advice. So I, my father was a Valuer Auctioneer and Surveyor in Camborne and ran his own business. And so I always enjoyed the whole issue of surveying and land and property and that, you know, the whole nature of it, the legal evaluation, lots of aspects to it.
So I went to the University of Reading to do Land Management, which I thoroughly enjoyed, joined Knight Frank and Rutley, the very smart, as they were based in Hanover Square, where ironically, our Parish Chair now, Penny Taylor, was actually the Executive Assistant to the senior partner, so she was the first person I met. And then, when I became the MP and settled in Much Hadham, there she was again, so it was a very strange small world. But that took me to the early 80s, and I did two years with Knight Frank's, a really good experience, and that led on to working for a multi-disciplinary consultancy, called Derrick Wade and Waters, which had a base in both the West End, which is where I was based, but also a base in Roydon. And we did a lot of work, most of my work was industrial and commercial planning and development and lettings in the South Hertfordshire area. So everywhere from, I'm going to include, dare I say, Harlow in this, but in terms, if we think of the A414, east/west, then from Harlow, a little bit up to Stortford, then of course, Hertford, and then running across towards Potters Bar, and so on. So that was one of the areas where one of our clients - so I got to know the area very well. I lived in northwest London, and that led on to just getting to know this area geographically.
So jumping forward a little bit on the political side, I stood, partly because of my background, for a West Country seat, a parliamentary seat. So this was the, this was the second tranche to my career as correctly advised by my parents. So we've got the surveying under our belt, we were doing that but I ran for parliament in Wansdyke, which is between Bath and Bristol, was unsuccessful in ‘97. I think, I suspect the Dalai Lama would have been unsuccessful as a Conservative in 1997. But anyway, so actually, it was a really good thing for me because Bowen Wells, then at the next election or the run up to it, announced he wouldn't be standing. And that opportunity came up, and I knew when I stepped into that, I just felt when I went into that first interview, it just felt right. And so I was selected as the Conservative candidate in 2000 for Hertford and Stortford. Politically, I should say I was aware, because Shirley Williams was quite a strong figure, and because, of course, she lost her seat, which was then Hertford and Stevenage, to Bowen Wells, it was very much on my radar about the geography of the area and having worked in the area, it just felt a natural fit. I was living, when I applied, at the time in Bushey Heath. So just over the border into the county, but was heading east all the time with work projects and so on, and into Hertford into Harlow and elsewhere.
So that really brought me up to the beginning of 2001, when I was chosen as the candidate, and one of the first things I did, and it was one of the wiser things I did, was to ask Peter Ruffles to walk me round Hertford to get a sense of the town. One of the things I learned as a surveyor was that there's no substitute for walking an area. And actually, it's a really good thing in politics as well. And it's one of the things that you learn, in terms of a constituency, a town, a community, because you do knock on doors, and you do go down cul-de-sacs, that most people in their daily lives wouldn't if they didn't live there, it does give you a really good ground sense of what a community feels like and how it differs. So anyway, that takes me up to 2001 and the general election when I was elected with a majority of 5000, which is roughly the same as Bowen had before, and a margin, what did we have, wasn't that great a margin, but in terms of share of the vote, I think it was something like 48%, something like that. So anyway, so that takes me up to 2001.
RL: Right. And just going, just working backwards, what interested you in the Conservative Party originally?
MP: I was a child in the 1960s and 70s. And I think certainly, if you ask me, in terms of politics, I was very much aware of the three-day week, the lights being switched off, things not seeming to work, the sense of chaos we had in the 1970s. I liked the sound of, I thought Margaret Thatcher seemed to me a different voice. In 1978/79, a) she was a woman, which in those days was incredibly rare, for any female political leaders. We'd seen, you know, Indira Ghandi, we'd seen a Golda Meir, but we in this country, we hadn't, despite the fact we had a female monarch, of course, for many years. So I just felt they were a breath of fresh air, they were different. I liked, for me, it's about the freedom of the individual, it's about the state being the servant of the people and not the master, it's about making sure that those who are successful are still wanting to reach back and help those who are less fortunate. You know, there's a number - it's about defence and security, we were in the Cold War at the time, so wanting a robust position, in that, those contexts. So I think those were some of the critical things that, for me, felt that they offered something fresh, and something different. And that's what attracted me into the, into the party. And like all organisations one joins, there are things, there are strands that you strongly support, there are elements you're not so sure about, and some things you really don't like. And it's a challenge always being in a party, because there are times when the leader, and I had six leaders whilst I was a member of parliament you know, which actually sounding rather small now…
RL: I’m going to say that’s not very many [laughter].
MP: Not at that time [laughter] But so, you know, with each of them, each personality comes, but it has to be, you have to be a team player, and you have to accept that sometimes you aren’t going to get your way. I was very strongly against us making the decision to leave the European Union. But the public had made their decision, and now we've got to try and make the best of it. That was my view during the very tortured period between 2016 and 2019. I still feel it's a mistake, but, you know, trying to unpick all of that now would just be more traumatic and it's been such a distraction from all the other issues that we need to be getting on with, and then of course, COVID arrived, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
RL: Yes, sure. I mean, when you first came to Hertford as an MP, what, was there anything particular that you wanted to do for the local area?
MP: Well, the first thing, I've always taken the view, the first thing you should do is not come with pre- packed prejudices or views in that sense, is to understand, that’s why I went out with Peter, is to get a sense of what were the critical issues. And I think here the critical issues have always been how you balance the infrastructure needs, whether it's transport or GP places or school places with the pressure for growing the area. And there's that inherent tension, and almost all of the issues that I dealt with in terms of, beyond the sort of personal care issues and the quality of public services, but in terms of these sort of strategic issues in the area, all of them had at the heart of them that tension between the need for certainly more homes, the need for jobs, while making sure that we've got the public services that can actually make sure that the quality of life is where it should be. And that was always the tension. I mean, some things did change.
So when I started in 2001, there was a much higher proportion of, preponderance of, teenage mums coming to see me about housing issues. 10 years on, it disappeared as an issue, didn't come into the postbag, didn't come to see me. So, sometimes these issues ebb and flow and suddenly they just melt away. I think one of the big issues in Hertford has always been this issue of the [A]414 ripping the heart out of the town, drawing traffic into it, and how do you deal with that? Do you have another bypass? How do you fund that? Where does it go? Is that going to merely add to the problem and draw more traffic through? Do you try to reduce our reliance on cars, for short vehicles? What alternatives do you realistically provide to make that practical? So there's all those sorts of issues, which, I think, but yes, I think that, that's a deep scar that I think that the community felt throughout, throughout, the period and still do and I, you know, I think we sort of got to a stage where there was a discussion about whether or not a southern bypass was practicable. But I doubt that will happen for financial reasons, and also environmental reasons.
RL: Is it complicated having County Hall here and East Herts District Council and the Town Council?
MP: Yes, I mean, ironically, they actually, of course, contribute to the transport problem, because they pour down onto the 414, from County Hall and from the East Herts, they do. I don't think in one sense, it actually makes it more convenient. If I was over in Tring or representing that end of the county, then coming over to County Hall would be more of a challenge. I always had quite a good relationship with County. And obviously, there was always a tension between County and District and then District and Town. Hertfordshire remains a county of small towns. You've got one or two exceptions to that, but particularly East Hertfordshire, there is no centre. I think, as a constituency Member of Parliament, the challenge was, is always, that there's no middle. A lot of constituencies have a middle, a natural central point. But if I was doing something in, say Stortford, quite rightly, the people in Hertford will be saying, well hang on, what about Hertford, and vice versa, and the same with Ware and the same with Sawbridgeworth.
So I always likened it to one of those, remember those variety shows on the television from the 1970s, there will be a man who was spinning plates, and it's a bit like that, you know. It's all very well, you can be doing wonderful things in Bishops Stortford or Sawbridgeworth, but if you're not also doing, working hard, in Hertford, and Ware, then people are going to be complaining. So there's, it's that constant, making sure that everybody feels they see you, you're working, you're engaged, you understand the issues. A county hospital was, I think one of the early issues I had, big push, I think rightly, to have a new modern hospital to replace, what was it, er, the QEII
RL: That was a private finance initiative, wasn’t it?
MP: It was and it was something that the Labour Party were prepared to do in government, which I supported. Marian Rowe, then the member for Broxbourne was the first one to get it going. I then joined her and we got a whole raft of others. But tragically, it got chopped just after the 2005 election, I think, so, which was intensely frustrating. The risk was that County Hospital would have gone as well. Thankfully, I was able to be pushy enough, lobby enough, however you want to put it, with the leadership at the hospital up at the Lister for them to recognise that in the absence of the QEII, actually, they needed to do more in Hertford. And so we were able to get a bit of investment there, had to be funded by the housing.
But actually, it's a, it's a good facility now, County Hospital. I know it was much loved, and it had that nice, homely feel to it, but the truth was when you looked at the maintenance and management of it, it was at the edge of crumbling away, so the new facility there I think is a genuine improvement. But that, that's a classic example of how do we square the need for the services? How do we fund it? The cost of the land? Who's going to pay the capital? You know, all those sorts of things, which can be a real challenge
RL: One of the other things in Hertford always discussed is retail, of my, of my, connection with retail, you, I think towards the end of your tenure as MP, you joined or you started or were, Chairman of the future High Street forum.
MP: Yeah. So at a government level, I think we all recognised even before COVID, that high streets were struggling to compete. The onslaught of online shopping, which most of us all participate in, means that a fifth of all goods, and in some sectors far higher than that, are now bought online, and this has been gradually increasing. So with high costs, rent and rates, of course, it's meant that Hertford, like a lot of other towns, has struggled with this. And also, I think, because Hertford has a very attractive historical character to it, some of those shops are quite difficult to convert. I remember talking to a number of the different shopkeepers, and, you know, them saying, ‘Well, it's a lovely building, but it's a nightmare in terms of trying to manage the space’, and so on. And so you have this gradual shift towards a nighttime economy, with restaurants, and pubs, and so on, which is difficult, because for the older population in the town, they want to go to their town centre and shop. And they don't, they're not against young people being able to go out in the evenings or whatever, but there has to be a balance. And of course, what was happening was that economically, it was much more viable to have a restaurant than it was to have a carpet store. You know, and so that became a real problem. And I think that's what led then to the challenges around Bircherley Green. I mean, I opposed the notion that Waitrose should go to Van Hage’s. My worry was that if they went to Van Hage’s, it would impact not only Hertford, but also Ware, and that didn’t make myself terribly popular with Van Hage's, but I think it was the right thing because it would have become a tremendously, another, yet another, out of town, focal point. And so, and Ware was even more on the edge with the little Tesco, the Tesco’s there is undersized by comparison to most of them. We've already got Broxbourne and the centre there, so the risk was that would close and suddenly you'd have no - now of course, ironically, we have the convenience stores that popped up, but at the time, that was a challenge. And I think with Bircherley Green, obviously, it's been through various problems, and the original plans got shifted.
One of the things I was trying to do, and this is a good example of the challenge of a historic area and trying to modernise things, was we had GP’s practices that were in lovely buildings, but frankly, they were impractical for, lots of lots of stairs, you know, anybody with any mobility issues, was struggling. So it took about a year to get the three practices to agree that actually maybe they could come together. And then there was a discussion around where that should be. And I said, well, it needs to be where, frankly, older people, particularly those reliant on public transport can easily access. It can't be, you know, some location. So I knew that at Bircherely Green they were looking to replace, and couldn't find, a retail anchor in the middle. So what about the possibility of putting a primary care hub with not only doctors but also physiotherapists and nurses and so on, in the middle of the town where the bus station is? It's actually quite good for the developer because it brings people to the area. And therefore, although they could have other shops, that would be a good anchor.
So we then spent, I hate to tell you,18 months of negotiations with NHS England. Not least, and this is one of the frustrations, there are two departments within NHS England who deal with this, one dealing with the property, the other one is dealing with the practices, and they both have offices in the same building in Welwyn Garden City. Could I get them to talk to each other? No. So in the end, I got the GP’s and we all went to the building, and we, you know, and it incensed me enormously, because I just feel these people have to understand that it's a public service, and it's indeed the taxpayers who are paying, you know, their wages, and they jolly well should be doing …. Anyway, we got an agreement on that, to progress on that. How it will turn out I don't know because I've stepped away from politics. But if that classic thing of Bircherely Green 19 … late ‘70s, early ‘80s …
RL: ’83, I think.
MP: ’83, yes,….and so the question then is how you adapt that to modern use and how do you make it relevant? What is it that people want? A really difficult…I'm not sure that necessarily Lea Wharf, I think you were saying, is necessarily the perfect thing. My frustration with it was that one of the joys of Hertford is its rivers, and Bircherely Green, as was, had this big brick wall, and it's back to the river. And I kept saying to the developers, ‘Goodness me, you know, you've got a glorious asset here, looks across the water into Folly Island. Can we not redesign this so that actually we make use of that and people can enjoy it, and it can enhance the town’.
Now, the new design is not perfect, but at least it recognizes, it’s no longer that sort of big carpark wall with nothing but a blank frontage for the poor folk in Folly Island to stare at. At least it's that, and I that's one of the frustrations I've always had with, with development is, you know, this is a town, we’ll come on to the how the rivers divide the community in a moment, which has always struck me as being an interesting characteristic, but the rivers are at the heart of what makes the town what it is, brings that character to it. And so we should be, we should be recognising that and designing our town centre to face that rather than backing on to it, you know. You've got a better view of the bus station than you have of the river, which is just crazy.
TG: Interesting that McMullen’s their new, is it their vegetarian beer or something, is it called Rivertown on the side of all their dreys and I thought, good, I thought, actually, it's not a bad name
MP: Well, it’s a very good name. McMullens is a good example where a family business has been able to survive very difficult circumstances, so many small breweries have gone under. So we're fortunate to have them and you know, they're still successful. And, they've, the new generation has come in, and they've obviously shifted the whole thing, as is the trend today, of really pubs being food led rather than booze, which is probably a good thing, and more appealing to families and so on. Now, they cater for different types of people, but they have modernised that business and adapted, and I think it's important to reflect it.
So I'm a trustee of the Hertfordshire Festival of Music and we have our week of classical music in the town in June every year and McMullens have been willing to be a partner of that, and I encouraged them. They have their yard where they do the occasional event, it's very, it’s done very spartanly. but we've been able to make use of that. And it just tickled me that I was able, to I put this politely, I was able to organise an event in a brewery! [ Laughter] On the rivers, one of the things that I think the rivers do is actually mean that the neighbourhoods in the town are very distinct. It's part of the geography when it comes to Bengeo, of course, because it's up on a hill. But as a politician walking around knocking on doors, talking to people in Sele or King's Mead or up at Bengeo, and indeed Folly Island, they are all quite distinct. And for a small town, it's quite rare. You know, Bishops Stortford is more, more a single sense of a community, not wholly, Chantry is different. But, but Hertford, I've always felt when I'm on Sele Farm Estate, or I'm up at Bengeo or I'm in the Kingsmead area, they're all quite distinct. And that's partly because I think the rivers make such a distinct separation of the areas. And obviously the 414 even divided South, North, South, but actually the role of the Mimram, the Rib, the Beane, and the Lea do mean that Hertford is quite diverse in its character, even architecturally to a degree. I mean, Bengeo is quite different actually, to the majority of the town, and I think that's one of its strengths in many ways.
RL: That’s why I live there! [laughter]
MP: Well, there you are! I mean, it is obviously up on the hill, so that is the principal thing that separates it in that sense from the rest of the town physically, but nevertheless, I would say that, I don't know, you tell me Rod, it feels like a community in its own right, a village in that sense.
RL: No, you're right. It does. I mean, when you were an MP, what was your, did you have a regular surgery?
MP: Yes, always in Hertford Castle. So it's always difficult because, as I was saying about the spinning plates earlier, you needed to rotate, so I would have one in Hertford, Stortford, Sawbridgeworth and Ware, you know, rotate. I think the Ware one that - no, no we did, we kept the four. So always Hertford Castle, a little bit grand in one sense, but actually nice, very central, plenty of space, discreet, because sometimes people were in the waiting room, there's a space for a waiting room. And a huge diversity of things comes through the constituency’s surgery. I think it’s really important. I love the fact that, you know, even when she was Prime Minister, and I'm sure it's the same for Tony Blair as well and other prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher still sat in a community hall on a Friday morning and met with her constituents and so my attendance varied. We started doing it Friday afternoon, no sorry, we started doing it Saturday mornings, but various people said, actually, it would be more helpful if it was the back end of a working day. So we moved them to Friday, late Friday, usually four o'clock on a Friday, five o'clock on a Friday, that sort of time, and then we trialled one or two on Friday morning.
What I tried to do was to vary the Hertford and Ware ones from morning to afternoon, and Sawbridgeworth also just to try to offer people different times of the day on different days so that if they couldn't make this one, they could make that one. What I would say though, is that people don't travel east or west. So if I was in Stortford it will be quite rare for people to come across from Hertford to Bishops Stortford, which I find living in the middle at Much Hadham strange, but it was very noticeable than in both directions. And one of the features of the county, which is that it's actually a north/south county, in terms of how people travel. You have the A10 here, the A1 further to our west, and then really the M11 on the east side. But to get people to come from Stortford to a surgery at Hertford or vice versa, ‘Oooh, there be dragons’! Which is interesting, you know, given that we're in the home counties that we’re this close to London that people travel, you know, good distances for work. But there was that slight reluctance for people to come and see me in Hertford if they lived in Sawbridgeworth
RL: Any amusing anecdotes, anybody who came to you, while they were …..
MP: Well, there was a lovely lady who was the ‘monkey lady’ as we called her, and that was because she kept monkeys, and she was very sweet. Do you know, I think, and she was a good example, that is not that there were any particular real issues, she was lonely. And she'd always managed to get into see Bowen, and actually, these things become busier, of course, but if one can have that space and time, you should be able to do it, you should be accessible. You know, that's something that I think is really important. We did also in Ware have a gentleman who came in with a briefcase and I always had somebody with me, a councillor usually, and my assistant, because we moved, sadly, into a period where there were potentials for violence or threats, and so on, which we unfortunately did have a case of here which I may come on to, but we did have one gentleman who had a little, he opened his briefcase and said, ‘Before we start Mr Prisk, I just need to take precautions’. And I just held back - hello, what's going on here? And he opened his briefcase and he buried away and he brought out what was, I think, a little Tupperware thing covered in baco-foil and popped it on his head. And so this was clearly a gentleman, he explained that he was very concerned about the takeover of public life by aliens, and this was to stop the rays. So clearly, some significant mental health issues. I tried not, to not look, I can't remember who the councillor was at the time we were there, I tried not to look at them because I just thought it was when he said that he was particularly concerned that, this was the time of the Labour government, that John Prescott was clearly one of the leading aliens. I just tried not to look because I knew I would I would giggle. But you do get - you get all, you get anything and everything, you get some terrible tragic cases you get, you get disputes between neighbours. I have to say it's we men who are guilty of boundary issues to being taken to the nth degree and there are people would arrive with a briefcase full of photographs that they’d taken from their bedroom window of how their neighbour had been cutting the hedge at two in the morning and look, you know, just think really have you got nothing better to do, became very intense. The mums on the other hand would always be much more intense about their child at school, and while sometimes they have very good cases, it was usually quite entertaining to just be aware of how her, the mum’s partner, the male partner, was, usually, the face was really quite carefully fixed, because you could sense that he's, he's heard it all before, and little Johnny probably wasn't quite that perfect example, and maybe the teacher probably did have a case, but Mum was on onto it. And you know, you think, you have to deal with those.
And you also get cases, I remember a young couple who had got themselves into debt. And it wasn't clear, and when I pressed them a little bit, because I said we can help them with debt agencies and CAB and so on and so forth. But I just need to get a sense of what the scale of this is, and how many, you know, people you're - and this was the point at which the young female member of the partnership started to reveal far more debt than her partner realised that she had. And we were talking, they were a young couple, and they've, she'd probably run up £12,000 in credit card debt, and she tried to manage it by getting another card to pay for it, you know, and my heart went out to them really, because she'd been foolish, and they had a little one and they were both working every hour God sends. So we were able to sort that out.
And that, I've always found those constituency cases where people are in difficulties and you can intervene, particularly where the NHS and Social Services were at loggerheads and we're rationing, that's the truth of it rationing, the service they provide. And then the family is caught in the middle between the two budget holders. And that's where, and I had one or two major rows with County Hall, and with the local NHS about that, because, and got those changed. And those are the, those are the cases where you make a real difference to someone's life. And they are intensely rewarding I found. So that those were, those were good things in that sense. And there was one lady who was sadly terminally ill, but she had, what it was she came to see me about, was that she had some debt that she'd got herself into and we were able to sort that out, and I still have a lovely little letter from her just saying thank you, you know, you put my mind at peace and so on, so forth, and she died about that six months later or so. So those are the ones where you can make a real difference. And whilst everyone naturally focuses on being a minister, or major planning inquiries or whatever, those are the ones that stay with you.
RL: Did you find it difficult because obviously you had various positions in government, and obviously lots of connections with Cornwall, did you find it difficult to try and isolate the two interests you have? So Hertford, you concentrate on Hertford for a bit, obviously ministerial duties as well, how did that work?
MP: You've always got to balance the two and any member of parliament has to both have a national perspective, what's right for the country, but also make sure that they're representing their constituents. So it's that classic thing that you have in any member of parliament. Then when you become a minister of the crown, clearly, that is, er, it's a much greater, but it's the same principle, I think. What I think there is, if there’s something say, for example, airport expansion would have been an obvious area, less so from Hertford, perhaps, but certainly from Bishops Stortford’s point of view, and, and Sawbridgeworth, and so on. But nevertheless, impactful here because of the flight patterns. And I think that's an area where, you know, you can excuse yourself, you can say that I have a conflict here. And usually nine times out of ten, ministers, the Prime Minister and the Chief Whip and so on will say, well, that's fine, A, you shouldn't be dealing with that case directly, because you're conflicted. So that will move across to somebody else. And B, if it's a question of a vote, if it's a constituency issue, I think they might say, well, I will resign, they'll say, that's fine, we'll respect that. And you've done the right thing, and you've done the right thing to your constituents. And it may well, therefore, be that in due course, in the future, we may consider you for a role.
So there is a, there's a respect for the fact that you've got to juggle these two things all the time, and it's not easy. I had it with housing and planning. So I made it clear that as a Housing Minister, you know, I would not be involved, and could not be involved, in any planning issues related to Hertfordshire and neighbouring Essex because I had an interest there and it's wise you know, to have stepped in, and been able to step in, to oppose, you know, some of the schemes that have been there, when I felt that they were, they were wrong and inappropriate.
RL: While you were MP for Hertford was there anything major in Hertford that did give you sort of sleepless nights worrying about how you should ….
MP: Well, I suppose the first issue, which was that sort of thing, affected a number of people who worked for GSK, just over in Ware but lived in Hertford. And this was when we had the Animal Rights, people who were being quite violent, and the public things that people knew about, where they were putting razor blades in Mars bars and that sort of thing. But they had also been threatening, at least 4 constituents who lived in Hertford. And people had been hanging around their, you know, entrance to their house and all the rest of it. So, you know, you do worry about that. And obviously, I had also then had to have police advice in terms of my own home and checking under the car and all of that sort of thing. And then on a more personal level, I mentioned that there was one constituent who lived in Hertford. He, he had a number of mental health issues, he came and I was able to help him with two of them. But he then had a major breakdown and he started to believe that he was being plotted against, and that somehow I was part of, because he was Irish, I was some I was part of a British government plot against him, and he'd fallen out with his partner, and, you know, he was, he was on quite significant medication. And he was quite a big guy, and he would come in, and he would start quite quietly, and then he would work himself up to the point where he would even start getting quite puce, and quite aggressive, and sweary, but he’d sometimes burst into tears. So he was quite a pitiful figure, but he started becoming more and more paranoid. And he was, he was done for, he had attacked a police officer.
Anyway, to cut a very long story short, just before the 2017 general election, when Theresa May announced that one, it was that snap one, he made 11 separate death threats to me on the phone, and left messages, because it frightened my staff, of course it would, because, you know, but you got this terrible thing. And so I consulted with the police, and it frustrated me because I felt, well, I kind of know who he is and I understand the background, and he's rather a sad figure in some ways. But the police were very clear, which is that I needed to be careful, that if I was advertising where I was going to be, particularly during an election campaign, that I was opening myself up and those people who will be around me, or you know, if I was at a public meeting or something, to something happening that would be untoward. And their advice was, you can go and campaign but do not advertise where you're going to be in advance, which is actually incredibly frustrating, because that's the whole point. So we did it, we worked our way around it. And my wife was robust on the subject because I was going over what I think, I think this is nonsense, and, you know, she said, ‘No, this is this is a serious death threat’. Now, he was then done for GBH, and he had been, he was in prison for a period. But it meant that, for example, we had two public meetings, one here and one in Stortford, or there was going to be one in Stortford, and I had to do them and I said, ’Look, this is the situation’, the police say I shouldn't, you know, come and you're going to obviously say you're going to be having it because you want an audience. So, we, I had to do video recordings for it, which was just bonkers.
But so that's, that was one thing which did give me sleepless nights, to go back to your go back to your point. And it's a shame, and I have to say it, to be fair, women parliamentary representatives now, and here we are in 2023, get it far worse even now than then. But social media has cranked this up, you know, in a terrible, terrible way. There's always this weird thing I found from about 2012 onwards, which is that you will be out and about in the real world, and, yes, people would want say to us I’m very unhappy about what your party is doing, or the government shouldn't be doing that or whatever and we'd have a discussion about it, it'd be fine. But on social media, much, a very different environment, very aggressive, quite, you know, deeply unpleasant in many cases. And then I suddenly realised that a lot of it is not real at all, it's these, it’s these bots. Because there was some woman who was saying that I was a child murderer, and I was this that and the other and, you know, you initially you think that, whatever. And then, if you have any conscience at all, it starts to grate because you think well hang on a moment, I'm trying to do you know - this is self-evidently nonsense. And I sort of dug in a bit to find out who she was ans where she is from, notionally living in Switzerland, and of various archive photographs. So I just assumed that this is a non- existent person who's being you know, and I'm on a list of government candidates, so out goes these things - that I think is sad. Whereas you would, then you'd have that, and then you'd come back out to the real world and meet people, you know, with a little street stall out in the middle of Hertford. And you just, of course, there'd be people saying, we don't like the Tories or whatever, you have proper discussion, but it's never it was - it was always about an issue rather than you know, the person. It would always be, ‘’well, you know, we like what you're doing, Mr Prisk, but we're very unhappy with your party about X or Y’, you know, good, sensible constituency debates, as you would expect.
RL: So at the end of the day, obviously, is it 2017?....
MP: 2019, yes, so I announced in September I, I, the decision is very difficult with these things, but I was 57/58, I will be 58 at the general election in 2019/20, and I was expecting it to be the spring of 2020. But I thought, if you commit yourself, you must commit yourself to a full five-year period and it’s no good saying, ‘Oh, well, I'm happy to stand now’. And I just felt that if I was going to go on and do something useful after politics, that I, then I ought to step out at 58, rather than 63 or 4, when it will be much harder to get other roles, rightly, and I might not have the energy or whatever to do. And I will be honest, and say that I think the bitterness of the debates around Brexit made it an easier decision because Parliament between 2016 when the referendum was, and the general election in 2019, was a pretty grim place, and it destroyed so many friendships and politics, The House of Commons works well when we have that, we have the, you know, the two dispatch boxes in the, in the Chamber, and there's a robust, direct debate.
But beyond that, for the most part, people rub along, and people look to try to work out where they can, you know, make decisions and agree on a compromise on things. And I have very good relations with a number of members of the Labour Party, including at least three members of the Shadow Cabinet now, who, you know, I respect them, they respect me, and we can work. We’ll disagree on certain things, that's fine, that's politics. But we're also mature enough to sit down and engage. The Brexit debate period just became so vitriolic, and, you know, it was like having, like having that slightly odd member of the of your wider family, who always brings the subject back to something that they're unhappy about. We would be debating almost any topic and up would suddenly pop somebody on one side of the Brexit argument and say, ‘Well, of course, this is all because of the foreign courts, blah, blah, blah’, and then somebody else would pop up, and that's it. And we were talking about, you know, planning issues, and now we're suddenly talking about Brexit AGAIN, and you just can't get anything done.
And so I just found it intensely frustrating and I thought, well, I've done 18 years. I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed the constituency work, I've been privileged enough to represent a beautiful constituency and live in the middle of it. And I've been a Minister of the Crown for three and a half years, Trade Envoy to the Prime Ministers for five after that, you know, don't overstay your welcome, I think. And I think it's better to go slightly earlier than late, specially in politics. And since then, when I sat down with Julie Marson, who succeeded me, I said to her then, and I would say to anybody, I will be silent for the next 2 or 3 years because you need to, you know, people have, they've had 18 years of me, if I'm stepping off the stage, there's no good me trying to get back onto it. And I can assure you there were a lot of people who were wanting to tempt me to say things during that period, last three or four years, which I can understand in some senses, but others I think probably because they wanted to see it, they could create a little bit of mischief with my successor. But I have remained silent because she's entitled to her own time. It's not for me to butt into that.
I think as well, there has been a decline in some of the institutions in Hertford, I think during this period. You know, I mean, we managed to save County Hospital, but obviously the shift away in terms of the Courts, which started before I was the Member of Parliament, but nevertheless, I think that's a shame. Clearly County Hall now is about to, erm, and this is a reflection of a wider thing around home working and so on, but, you know, what, what happens with a building that's going to be quite difficult to repurpose for something else, is a difficult issue, I think. And that's, of course, about employment in the town. So there's that, we come back to that thing about the tension between jobs and the need for more homes and the more affordable homes, and how on earth we fit it all in. And what does that do for the environment? And what does it mean for traffic and so on? And it's a constant tension
RL: What do you feel your greatest achievement was personally, while you were MP?
MP: Gosh! in Hertford, Hertford specifically, I think County Hospital for me, is the thing that will have a lasting future. There are lots of individual cases where I feel, you know, that made a difference to people's lives. But that would be my, my feeling about Hertford, yes.
TG: I'm going to say what, you've got the four towns, and they’ve all got their own particular strengths and weaknesses, if you were sort of writing a travel brochure for Hertford, what would you say?
MP: Gosh! I would say, I would say, er…..it is a town with real character, with a tremendous history. I can't think of any other town that has been home, both to Parliament and synod, and still has that sense of different centuries, never mind decades. When you look at the lodge, we talk about it as the castle, but actually, Hertford Castle is the lodge to the original castle. I remember talking to Lord Salisbury about this because obviously, that's still under his ownership and so on. And, you know, the walls around it, obviously, are from a completely different period to the lodge. And so there's, there's that wonderful sense of history round every corner. And I think that, in the South East of England, that's quite a rare thing these days, you know, there are one or two in Surrey and in Sussex, but Hertford has that real, real sense of history. And the fact that you've got the rivers running through it as well brings a real sense of character to it.
TG: There’s nothing can think of ……
MP: Just trying to think about anything I wanted to add in it
TG: We're going to be going right back to basics and saying that, you know, you talked about sort of wanting to go into parliament but were you first of all, a local councillor or what?
MP: No, I didn’t. So I suppose in terms of my pathway, I was very involved with the Cornish Young Conservatives, became chairman of that. So I set up the Camborne and Falmouth one and became chairman of that and then into student politics, became a national vice-chairman of Federation of Conservative Students, I was chair of the Reading University Conservative Association. Then coming to London, I ran campaign groups in northwest London, in that area. So I hadn't had any direct, I wasn't, I wasn't a councillor. I thought about it but because, I think, particularly when you're working in London, and travelling as I was, across south of Hertfordshire, the ability to commit yourself regularly to being an elected councillor in a locality was quite restricted.
TG: Lots of meetings.
MP: Yes. And they tend to be evenings, which is fair enough. So I hadn't, I've been more on the campaigning side in that sense than as having elected office. So, and I've been involved in student politics with a whole raft of things. But that was my sort of pathway through. I just felt a natural affinity when we were doing the selection process. It’s sometimes like a job interview in one sense, but it's actually much more personal, because they are choosing you, they're not choosing your CV. What the decision, - I always remember people saying to me, because there are 180 people who applied for the constituency, and they interviewed, I think, 12. Yes, it was 12, 6, 3, so there were three rounds. And those different processes, I just felt, when I went into the first room, that somehow this felt right. It's an odd thing to say, I felt comfortable with them and I think they did with me and that's, it's a very personal thing when members choose. I sat in for the selection for Julie Marson, which was all done, but I sat at the back. And so it was, it was a, it was quite an interesting circle to close actually, in that sense. Very different, different group of people, you know, newish members and all the rest of it different background, different circumstances.
But yes, it's, it's, selection as a parliamentary candidate, and I'm sure it's the same for the other parties is, in the end what people are tending to think of, because they'll, they'll have people who are barristers and teachers, and so on, so how you can, in the end, I think what people tend to do is to say to themselves, ‘Is this someone that I feel, who has the right character and judgement, is this someone that I feel if I was to take them to meet my friends, or the people that I know or the people in my community that I would feel that actually, you know, comfortable with that’? And I think that's, that's actually often overlooked people, if somebody is preparing for being chosen, you know, they try and bone up on every political issue. But you know, I say to them, and I do mentor one or two who are aspiring now because I want to see good people going into politics, and I say to them it's your judgement they’re after, not your view. They'll disagree with you on things but if they can understand your thought process, and that you are reasonable, and that you listen, that's actually what most people are interested in. They may not agree with you but if you can argue your corner and do so in a respectful manner, that's what they're looking for - judgement.
TG: Thank you. I think we are there.
MP: Rightly lovely, is that OK? Yes. I mean, there's, there's some good issues there that were. [Tape recording ends.]