News / Politics
Big shoes to fill for new MP Karin Smyth
Following the general election, Bristol24/7 caught up with Karin Smyth for the second of our five-minute interviews with all the city’s new or reelected MPs.
Following in the footsteps of Dawn Primarolo, Bristol South MP since 1987, you would be forgiven for thinking Karin Smyth might be a little intimidated by the shoes she has to fill.
But the newly-elected replacement has no such anxieties. “They are enormous shoes, yes, but I have had a lot of time to think about it,” she says on a brief break from the Westminster inductions.
“Me and Dawn, we are cut from the same cloth. We know how to listen and know when to act. I know what she has done for the people of Bristol South, and it is the people of Bristol South who are important at the end of the day.”
Among the things Smyth promises to focus on for those very constituents are apprenticeships, housing and the protection of the NHS.
“I think the job, whether we are in government or not, is the same. We have to stand up for what is important and that’s jobs, particularly for young people, housing, of which we have a huge shortage in Bristol, and the NHS which is going to be under attack from the Tories.”
Her background as a non-executive director in the NHS will help. But the mother-of-three says her “deep roots” in her community will be her biggest advantage. “The expenses scandal and the reports from the Leveson Inquiry have led to a distrust of ‘career’ politicians who don’t have the understanding of life that resonates with a broad electorate. I do have that understanding.”
Karin says she is “incredibly proud” that Bristol returned an all-female group of MPs, although she adds she would have preferred her Labour colleague Darren Jones to have defeated Tory Charlotte Leslie in Bristol North West.
“I think there were something like 41 women MPs when Dawn started all those years ago and now there are 191. And in the Labour Party there are something like 99 female MPs now which shows how far we have come.
“I hope this encourages more women in all kinds of situations to themselves forward in politics.”
Since she has been in office with her two other Labour Bristol colleagues – Kerry McCarthy and Thangam Debbonaire – she says her work has been a “very dull” succession of inductions, “just like any job”.
“People don’t really understand that,” she adds. “They think it’s just a matter of taking over straight away but it doesn’t work like that unfortunately.
“Our work so far has been very practical – setting up offices in Bristol and London and finding our way around the corridors of Westminster, which happen to all look the same.”
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