Never mind a customs union… I’m starting a marital one! TV star turned No10 contender Esther McVey tells JAN MOIR she’s to wed fellow MP Philip Davies (as she warns Tories face ‘oblivion’ if they don’t deliver Brexit)

True blue: Esther McVey is the voice of blue-collar Conservatism

Upon the blasted heath of Brexiteer politics, some good news at last. Esther McVey is to marry Philip Davies, her fellow MP and boyfriend of the past four years.

‘Phil has popped the question and I have said yes,’ she reveals. ‘I haven’t got a date and I haven’t got a ring, but we hope to marry sometime next year.’

The arch-Brexiteers met in 2011, when she was impressed that he was one of the first MPs to start campaigning about leaving the EU.

Was that what first attracted her to the Honourable Member for Shipley? ‘No! I was attracted to his cracking sense of humour,’ she says. ‘He makes me laugh so much. And he is the most supportive man I have ever met. He’s been there for me in good times and bad.’

Despite their recent debut joint interview for the ConservativeHome website and her declaration of love for her divorced partner (‘he is the man I am going to spend the rest of my life with’), she doesn’t see themselves as a ‘dream team’ power couple in Westminster or elsewhere. ‘We’re not exactly Jay Z and Beyoncé, are we? Maybe you could call us Philly D and Ezzy?’

Maybe not! But whatever the outcome of this febrile, mad period in British politics, McVey believes she will be one of the last ones standing.

‘I will survive the chaos,’ she says, gesturing across the Thames towards the sunlit Houses of Parliament. ‘A lot of people in there, they can’t take much more. Their blood pressure is rising, their health is deteriorating, they are used to routine, to order, to tea at 5pm. But I am used to turmoil.’ She taps a tiny fingernail on the table. ‘I thrive in adversity.’

Esther McVey is to marry Philip Davies, her fellow MP and boyfriend of the past four years

A former television star, businesswoman, student, waitress, head girl and foster child in a Barnardo’s home — and also the owner of the best blow-dry in Westminster — the 51-year-old MP for George Osborne’s old seat of Tatton is not your typical Conservative politician.

The former Work and Pensions Secretary grew up in Liverpool during the bedlam of the Militant Tendency years, when her eyes were opened to how extremism, illegal budgets and Labour indiscipline could destroy a city.

She turned to Conservatism at an early age, although she is careful never to praise Margaret Thatcher and is muted on the subject of Theresa May. ‘Yet to me the Tories were always the party that made sense. I believe in freedom of the individual and personal responsibility.’

As the Prime Minister’s Brexit woes continue, McVey has made it clear she is ready to stand as the next Conservative leader and will run in any leadership contest ‘if there are enough people to back me’.

Known as a hard-working politician who is full of ideas, if not having the strongest grasp on detail, McVey stands for her own potent brand of what she calls ‘blue-collar Conservatism’ and has a reach and appeal among northern working-class voters that many Tories envy.

She must have looked on and seen how Andrea Leadsom’s 2016 leadership bid came a cropper when she claimed she would be a better prime minister than the childless Mrs May because she was a mother — yet noted how it still enhanced Leadsom’s profile and led to political promotion. McVey must think to herself, what have I got to lose?

For the record, she has never been married before, nor had children. And while admiring all working mothers, she always knew she could never be one herself.

‘I believe in choice. And I always knew if I had a kid, I would want to give that little person all my time, like my mother did for me, taking me to sports events, ballet lessons, trampolining and all that. I would have given up whatever I was doing to be a full-time mum,’ she tells me. ‘I’ve always loved kids but you can’t have everything in life. I have no regrets.’

She has been a controversial figure, demonised as the face of unpopular Tory benefit policies such as Universal Credit and the so-called bedroom tax. She was accused of blaming families on the breadline for their own poverty, saying they prioritised mobile phones over food. Actually, she meant the reverse — that families need internet connections to access benefits, jobs and cheaper deals on consumer goods and utilities.

Yet suggest, as she does, that some could do this by accessing the internet in Jobcentres and you will be pilloried. Say, as she does, that ‘those who can afford not to use food banks shouldn’t use them’ and you will be regarded as a force for evil.

On the rise: Esther McVey pictured with GMTV presenter and reporter Eamonn Holmes

In her native Liverpool she is seen by some as a traitor to the class war cause, while Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has never apologised for once echoing a suggestion that she should ‘be lynched’.

‘He is all about bullying but he doesn’t scare me,’ she says.

As an ardent Brexiteer, she resigned from the Cabinet last November in protest at Theresa May’s deal to leave the EU. Her deepest fear now is that the Tory party may not survive the continuing Brexit imbroglio.

‘I have that concern. I have fought all my life and I want to be leader because I believe in the timeless values of Conservatism. And if we don’t deliver Brexit, then we might well be cast into oblivion for a long time — and that would be absolutely catastrophic for this country.’

To this end, she and Davies, 47, have taken a more pragmatic approach and now support the PM’s deal. ‘It is still a bad deal but things are getting worse and at least we would be out of the EU legally,’ she says, flicking her hair.

Ah yes. That hair.

Esther McVey speaking at a Brexit: Lets Go WTO Rally organised by the Leave Means Leave campaign in Westminster, January 17, 2019

Feminist gods strike me down, but we need to talk about this, for Esther has the greatest hair in Tory party history. It is such a marvellous bouncing bonce, often seen going for walkies along Downing Street or swishing gaily through the corridors of power. It once had its own Twitter account and is used as a weapon both for and against its owner.

When a row broke out last autumn between McVey and Chancellor Philip Hammond over claims of a £2 billion black hole in the welfare budget, one Treasury source sniped that ‘the only thing she knows how to do well is a blow-dry’.

The commentator Rachel Johnson is fond of asking her hairdresser for ‘an Esther McVey, please’. And there it is, sitting opposite me now, all shiny and marvellous.

It’s the kind of hair you don’t apply conditioner to, you feed it raw steak. I feel I should ask it some questions of its own, such as, what is the nearest you’ve ever come to dyeing?

The answer to that is once every three months, when a mobile hairdresser comes to McVey’s Cheshire constituency home to do her highlights. Day to day she washes it with Aussie Moist shampoo, clips it up and blow-dries it herself with a Babyliss Professional dryer and a roller brush.

‘Good genes gave me my good hair. I have to get it cut every three weeks,’ she says dismissively. Back in the Eighties, she even had a mohican.

When a row broke out last autumn between McVey and Chancellor Philip Hammond over claims of a £2 billion black hole in the welfare budget, one Treasury source sniped that ‘the only thing she knows how to do well is a blow-dry’

Please let us move on and never speak of this again. Now. Is life as a politician getting harder?

‘It is certainly getting more personalised,’ she says.

We meet for lunch at a hotel near Westminster, where Esther has Asian cod with noodles and a glass of water. In her smart Hobbs suit, she is vivacious but guarded. Beneath the cheerful Scouse rasp, her answers are careful and her face a patchwork of shifting emotions as she considers the implications of all she says.

There are off-guard moments, when she tells how she has put Davies on a diet and declared their homes biscuit and cake-free zones. And how she loves his impressions of political figures such as William Hague. Yet in an interview of long pauses, the longest is when I ask whether Phil does a good Speaker Bercow, too.

‘No!’ she eventually squeaks.

I’ll take that as a yes.

She says she feels better at 51 than she did at 31, while she could easily pass for 41. ‘I have become more confident with age. I’ve learnt to handle situations better. When I get things wrong, I learn from them.’

As an ardent Brexiteer, she resigned from the Cabinet last November in protest at Theresa May’s deal to leave the EU (pictured: Esther McVey, October 29 last year)

She believes that ‘you are a product of your upbringing’ and sees herself as a voice of authenticity. Her working-class upbringing gave her a rich life experience far removed from the smooth progression of most Tory posh boys.

One broadsheet newspaper recently reported that McVey’s girlhood domestic chores involved polishing the family shoes and peeling potatoes, as if these were examples of some Cinderella existence. Her background certainly is extraordinary, but not for those reasons.

Her ‘poor, young’ parents Jimmy and Barbara both hailed from strict Irish Roman Catholic backgrounds and met when they were teenagers. They were unmarried and aged 22 and 18 when Esther was born. Unable to cope financially, they put her in a Barnardo’s home while they got themselves sorted out, starting a building business and later buying a tiny home. Four and a half years later, they brought Esther to come and live with them.

‘They visited me in the home. They always wanted me back,’ she says.

Although everyone assumed they were a married couple, they didn’t marry until Esther was 12 years old and about to attend fee-paying Belvedere School, where she ended up as head girl. ‘It’s still the proudest day of my mother’s life,’ she says.

The McVeys divorced eight years ago, yet Barbara still works for Jim’s company — and they go on holiday together with Esther and Phil. It all sounds rather weird.

‘It seems normal to us!’ says McVey, who remains close to both parents and shares her Cheshire constituency home with her father and Mr Davies.

What a crazy life! When she moved to London to study law in 1987, McVey worked as a waitress and saved up to buy a tiny flat in Shoreditch for £55,000, later purchasing the freehold for another £500. With her good looks and effervescent personality, she chose television over being a barrister and worked on GMTV with Eamonn Holmes and elsewhere.

Live broadcasting taught her to control her nerves, and today she still uses the techniques she learned on the breakfast sofa in the House of Commons.

There were men, of course there were. And showers of proposals.

Most of her boyfriends wanted to marry her, but Esther always turned them down. Why? Perhaps she had abandonment issues because of her childhood, I suggest.

‘Eh? No, I just didn’t want to marry any of them. I might have loved them but most of them wanted me to be a supportive wife and I wanted to be equal, to do my own thing.’

In the past, she has had relationships with former BBC Drama boss Mal Young and Tory MP Ed Vaizey, who legend has it asked her to marry him nearly every month during their year-long courtship.

‘I always knew that they weren’t the right one and when I met Phil I knew that he was,’ she says.

Today she is the living embodiment of the social mobility she likes to champion, the daughter of a father who always told her: ‘Est, I don’t care if you don’t succeed, so long as you give it your best shot.’

McVey could have stayed on the telly and chosen an easier life, perhaps becoming the darling of Merseyside. Instead, she chose a more difficult path and remains passionate about her calling.

‘For me, it is about how do we empower and enable people, not how do we keep them on benefits and close down their horizons,’ she says.

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