New MPs get used to Westminster life

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One was a finalist on MasterChef, another is a breast cancer nurse and a third has done three tours of duty in Afghanistan.

The six new MPs we have been following over the past two months have come from all walks of life and their reflections on life at Westminster have been fascinating.

If the pundits were surprised by the election result, so were many of the candidates. Former army captain Johnny Mercer - who this week has appeared half naked in an advert for Dove shower gel in the United States - was the unexpected Conservative winner for the seat of Plymouth Moor View.

'Dip in'

It was such a surprise that he had not prepared an acceptance speech.

Fellow Conservative Maria Caulfield was also a surprise winner, prising the Sussex seat of Lewes from the Lib Dem veteran Norman Baker.

She comes from a working class background in South London and was only drawn into politics when the Labour government planned cuts to the hospital where she was working as a nurse before becoming a sister leading a team in breast cancer research.

She plans on continuing some of that work while she is an MP: "I think it's really important that I am able to dip in and see with what's happening in the NHS and so I can see for myself and hear from other nurses and doctors what life is really like and not just take it as something we're told here in Westminster."

Most of the 182 new MPs find the Palace of Westminster utterly baffling at first. It's something I remember myself as a rookie political journalist - I always seemed to end up in the House of Lords.

Jess Phillips. the new Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, told us: "I have only just found the ladies' toilets after three days.

"Hopefully it's going to get a bit better from here."

'Big gold thing'

Johnny Mercer, despite all those years of orienteering in the army, constantly found himself in the kitchens.

"Rather disturbingly I always seem to end up in the kitchen which is slightly worrying, but I'm getting to know all the staff because I just ask one of them to and they point me in the right direction," he says.

"We're getting to know each other quite well."

For many of the new intake the traditions and customs of Westminster are intensely frustrating. Jess Phillips told us: "It's a silly place to work where people wear tights and carry swords."

The new SNP MP for Glasgow East Natalie McGarry can't stand the formality of the parliamentary conventions like addressing other MPs as My Right Honourable Friend.

She told us she was appalled to see a Conservative MP with his feet on the table next to the mace - or that "big gold thing" as she described it.

She also hates the uproar in the Commons.

"The Tories are particularly bad at it, it sounds like rutting pigs," she says.

"I was frankly astounded that this is a thing that they do, they sit with their feet next to the queen's big gold thing - the mace? Yes the mace! It's been such a boys' club for so long that some of the conventions frankly don't belong in the 21st century."

'Braveheart'

But Johnny Mercer is disparaging about the SNP.

"There seems to be a fairly intense fight between the SNP and Labour for the other side of the chamber," he says.

"It's a bit of a pound shop 'Braveheart' really - trying to hang in there and kick out Dennis Skinner - so that's always amusing."

The new SNP MP for Edinburgh East, Tommy Sheppard, only joined the party a few months ago.

He was a Labour member for many years and ended up as a full time official as assistant general secretary in Scotland.

"If you'd asked me seven months ago I would have denied any intention of ever being here," he says.

He is clearly versatile - he runs several comedy clubs and was in the final of MasterChef.

"I was robbed actually," he jokes.

"I think it was a political decision to be honest."

Bangladesh PM

But he's got a new role now: "We've all been given a special brief to work on, mine is shadow spokesperson for the Cabinet Office which can mean everything or nothing.

"Someone once joked that it's a little bit like the director of 'better' from the W1A programme.

"It's not, it's not. It's a very serious position."

Tulip Siddiq held the seat of Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson's old constituency) for Labour by the narrowest of margins.

She knows her way around Westminster as she used to work here as a researcher. We caught up with her on the day of her maiden speech which is one of the initiation rites for new MPs.

But politics is in her blood. Her grandfather was the first president of Bangladesh and the current prime minister - Tulip's aunt - came to watch the speech.

Sheikh Hassina says "One day she'll be someone in this country - that I can predict it. I'm really, really proud of her."

Defence spending

Johnny Mercer's maiden speech won high praise from the prime minister. He described how his best friend died in his own arms.

The former captain decided to become an MP to campaign on better treatment for army veterans based on his own experience, as he explained to us.

"One patrol commander I turned up to after an improvised explosive device explosion had seen two of his soldiers eviscerated in front of him essentially and this section commander was walking around almost in a trance - and so the effect is very, very real."

But those powerful real life experiences has meant he is in no fear of the whips and so is prepared to rebel if the government doesn't spend 2% of GDP on defence.

He said: "David Cameron has given personal assurances to the head of Nato and to some heads in the army that that 2% is going to be met.

"It hasn't been officially announced. I personally would clearly like it to be seen to be met and if it's not I'll do everything I can to rectify that".

Tulip Siddiq is equally outspoken - she wants the mansion tax scrapped by her party and is defiant about high speed rail.

"I've made it very clear that I will be rebelling on something if the Labour Party puts a motion forward on [HS2] which I know that the Conservatives are also supporting but it destroys 300 homes near my constituency and I will be putting my constituency before the party in that case and so I think the whips are a little bit nervous about that."

'Daunting regalia'

And on one of the biggest issues facing the country - Europe - Conservative Maria Caulfield is also preparing to stand her ground. I asked whether she could imagine campaigning to leave the EU.

She replied "I personally could - I am quite a Eurosceptic.

"That's not to say that if David Cameron renegotiates an amazing deal, especially around the free movement of people, that I couldn't be persuaded to vote to stay.

"I probably will vote to leave, not 100% sure, I'd say about 80% sure."

Labour's Jess Phillips wants to use her experience as the director of a Women's Aid centre to challenge Michael Gove.

"I will be able to take him on having run Ministry of Justice contracts for the last five years," she says.

So what about the future? She is determined to keep a grip on reality.

"My biggest challenge in all this daunting regalia is to try and stay just me, just Jess, Harry and Danny's mum, you know, the woman who lives in Birmingham."