Last year’s Labour general election landslide saw Kent’s political landscape change massively, mostly at the expense of the Conservatives. Some Tories had stood down and others fought and lost.
Local democracy reporter Simon Finlay caught up with some of them to find what life has been like after Westminster…
In the early hours of July 5 last year, Ashford MP Damian Green stood watching the votes for Reform UK pile up in front of his eyes at the general election count.
Nigel Farage’s candidate had split the right wing vote and allowed Labour’s Sojan Joseph in by a margin of just under 1,800.
Mr Green cut a rather crestfallen figure, realising that his 27 years at Westminster were over. For someone who had risen to the rank of arguably the second most powerful politician in the country, as Deputy Prime Minister, his fall was probably the furthest of all the Kent Tories who bit the dust in 2024.
The former journalist has always been regarded as cheerfully good-natured, approachable and plain-speaking.
Before he left the building with his wife, Alicia, Mr Green gave a gracious speech and a few interviews to the Press. He looked like a man, aged 68 and suddenly rejected, who did not have his sorrows to seek that night.
“Weirdly, you don’t wake up and there’s nothing to do,” he recalled. “You have to sort out what you have to do to become a former Member of Parliament.
“You have about a week to clear out your personal possessions and organise the removal of office equipment and the like. I had a staff of five and they were suddenly unemployed, so you have to go through the process of making them redundant.
“To be honest, I don’t miss parliament as much as I thought I would. I do miss constituency work, visiting schools and businesses and campaigning for things like getting Eurostar back to Ashford.”
Mr Green saw the writing on the wall before the ballot boxes were opened.
“I could read the opinion polls, so it didn’t come as a bolt from the blue. You can either sit and brood or you move on with your life and that’s what I did.
“I don’t feel bitter about it, there’s no point. That is democracy.”
What has surprised him is the alacrity with which the wheels have fallen off a Labour government with a landslide majority.
He senses from afar that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has not rallied his army of MPs.
“Keir (Starmer), apparently, hasn’t voted more than about seven times, so he has little contact with his MPs. Sensible PMs will be in the lobby, squeezing elbows and having a word – that really raises morale. He doesn’t do that.”
Does he see Nigel Farage as a future Prime Minister?
“I don’t think he will be,” said Mr Green, “Reality will take hold. Nigel Farage is a talented politician and campaigner who has become a repository for people’s anger. He has done that brilliantly.
“People will not be able to envisage him doing what PMs have to do – he’s just not that kind of person. He is not a serious, weighty figure and I trust in the wisdom of the British people to see that.”
He believes that Reform UK’s leadership at Kent County Council will prove difficult.
“They’re going to have to make some tough choices at KCC and that’s going to be hard for them.”
Mr Green is now the chairman of the Social Care Foundation, a campaigning organisation and think tank reflecting an ageing society.
KCC has struggled to keep on top of the burgeoning adult social care bill in recent years in the face of squeezed funding and increased demand.
“To use that awful phrase, it’s a can that keeps getting kicked down the road but we are reaching a point where we can’t do that any more.”
Dame Tracey Crouch, who represented Chatham and Aylesford, announced she was stepping down from her life at Westminster before the election.
She is the managing director of Hanover, a PR and communications agency specialising in sporting clients.
Dame Tracey decided to step away after her successful battle against cancer which made her re-evaluate her life.
She said: “I miss my colleagues and I miss the ability to bring about change in the community. But I don’t miss the death threats or the threats of violence.”
The “tone of engagement” altered in her 14 years in parliament, becoming more aggressive and threatening.
With letters and emails, many hundreds, pouring in each day, people wanted answers “almost immediately”.
Does she blame social media?
“No,” she said bluntly, “People should behave better and more respectfully.”
Dame Tracey, although always well-regarded by the Press, did not enjoy the endless rounds of media interviews.
“I also do not miss having to have an opinion on absolutely everything – nobody has a perfectly formed opinion on every subject, yet we were meant to do that.”
The current state of the Conservative Party clearly worries her. Latest polling from Electoral Calculus suggests it will crash to 41 seats.
Dame Tracey said: “I think it’s infuriating and I find it frustrating. I have been involved with the party since I joined Folkestone and Hythe Young Conservatives and I hate to see it has lost a lot of direction and not responding to the threat of Reform.
“We’re in danger of lurching to the right.”
Fellow Conservative Kelly Tolhurst fought and lost her Rochester and Strood seat in 2024, but in defeat returned to her marine business selling coatings for boats.
“You don’t realise until you stop just how much you do and how much it takes out of you as an MP,” she said.
“I miss the people at Westminster and representing the area, but I lost the election. That’s politics. But I am still involved in local campaigns and projects and trying to use my voice to help others. This is my home and was my home before I became an MP.”
The all-consuming life as an MP meant she missed her family and friends – but regarded the overall experience as “an absolute privilege”.
Like Dame Tracey she does not miss the abuse online, not least death threats, veiled or otherwise, although compared to others, she feels lucky.
Ms Tolhurst said: “I can’t go into too much detail about the threats but it wasn’t nice. Police got involved. I have never used social media as a place for debate, just a broadcast platform so maybe that had something to do with it.”
One of Kent’s most colourful Conservative MPs, Adam Holloway, lost his Gravesham seat to former Labour KCC member Dr Lauren Sullivan last year.
The former soldier has been spending time working abroad and decompressing from the febrile atmosphere in the Palace of Westminster.
The former journalist joked: “Well, the blood pressure is significantly lower than it was when I was an MP. I’m not spending four hours a day, every day of the year doing emails.
“I don’t miss looking at my phone before I went to sleep and first thing in the morning or the abuse you’d receive.
“I’m enjoying spending time in the old constituency and meeting up with the many, many people I know there. I am enjoying the work that I am doing and the different pace of life.
“I have got the time to do my own things – to pay attention to my financial well-being which I neglected for the 19 years I was in parliament.”
Mr Holloway would stand again for the Conservatives in Gravesham “if they will have me”.
For former Folkestone & Hythe MP, Damian Collins, 2024 was the end of a 14-year career as a parliamentarian, when a 21,000 majority was overturned by Labour.
He was successful in the 2010 intake, having taken over the seat from Lord (Michael) Howard, the widely respected and hugely successful politician who served in the cabinets of both Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
Lord Howard, as Tory leader, was also credited with turning the Conservatives’ fortunes around, ahead of their coalition government with the Liberal Democrats in 2010.
Mr Collins was admired for his work on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee from 2016 to 2019 although his time as a junior minister in 2022 was short-lived. He received the OBE in 2023.
Since leaving parliament, Mr Collins has written occasional articles, taken up a senior fellowship at a Canadian university and recently acted as director of the four-day Fleet Street Festival.
He is also the non-executive director of Orbis Business Intelligence which describes itself online as an “apolitical corporate intelligence firm, delivering investigative and advisory services…”
For Gordon Henderson, now aged 77, parliamentary success came late in life at 62. Now he’s happy at home on the Isle of Sheppey but “busier than ever” in his garden, travelling and acting as chairman of the Sheppey Natural Burial Ground and governor of Leigh Academy Minster.
He’s even writing a follow-up to his first 2023 novel, Michael Palmer – A Very Working-class Spy.
Mr Henderson, who did not contest the Sittingbourne and Sheppey seat in 2024, said: “I miss the cut and thrust of Westminster and the constituency. I certainly don’t miss travelling up to London each day.
“Apart from a few nights I couldn’t get home, in the 14 years I was an MP I came back to the constituency after work.
“But now I wake up in the morning with a list of jobs to do, mainly from my wife.”
Craig Mackinlay, who stood down from his Thanet seat in 2024, was elevated to the House of Lords by the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Lord Mackinlay’s battle and near death to sepsis in 2023, undergoing multiple amputations in a London hospital, won the hearts and minds of many across the political spectrum.
He was fitted with prosthetic limbs, earning himself the nickname of “the bionic MP” and became the first member on record to receive a standing ovation from parliamentarians of all sides when he returned to the chamber in 2024.
The former member does not blame his intense workload and 80 hour weeks on the severity of his illness but he concedes they “probably didn’t help”.
So how is life away from the House of Commons?
“Ask my wife,” jokes Lord Mackinlay. “She’ll tell you what it’s like to have got me back.
“My case was very, very different because of the illness. But the job of an MP is all-consuming and the workload is immense. It’s not all drinking champagne on the terrace, you know.
“You hardly see your family, there are endless demands on your time, from the whips, a huge amount of reading as well, sitting on committees while meeting the needs of your constituents.
“But we do it because we love it. Being at Westminster is the most powerful drug on the streets of the UK and everyone gets addicted.”
Even now, Lord Mackinlay admits he is “probably over-doing it” having returned to practice as a chartered accountant full-time while spending three, sometimes four, days a week at the Palace of Westminster and volunteering for Sepsis UK.
The days of lead-swinging MPs in the 1980s are long gone with the advent of email, the internet and social media which have allowed access to members, hitherto restricted to letters and face-to-face surgeries.
But his place in the House of Lords allows him a platform to campaign on behalf of sepsis sufferers and their aftercare, particularly around prosthetic limbs.
“In the Lords, you can do politics for politics’ sake – although I am not sure that people take much notice of what we say.
“But I’ve got a big mouth and I am grateful for Rishi for putting me there.”
