Ex-minister: 'I won't miss the social media abuse'

A former Conservative MP and government minister who lost his seat in the July general election said he did not miss the social media abuse he received.

Tom Pursglove, who had represented Corby, in Northamptonshire, since 2015, was beaten by Labour's Lee Barron.

Two months on, he told the BBC he was still looking for a new job.

He added that he had "no regrets" about his time in Parliament and was "really proud" of his work and his team.

After clearing his desk in Westminster, one thing Mr Pursglove was glad to leave behind was the so-called keyboard warriors who he said aimed venom at him.

He said: "I just don't miss the social media abuse, some of that intolerance.

"When I think about local interaction, 99.5% of people were absolutely brilliant locally, [but] you get a small core who can often be quite disingenuous and would argue whatever you do is wrong, because of your particular political colour."

He revealed many of the people he got on with in the House of Commons were not from the same political party, and he could have civilised discussions with them.

He added: "If we could get along, and we could have a debate at the end of the day's business, that's a really good thing.

"I think we need more of that sort of politics in our society."

Since July, there has been some clearing out to do.

"The mainstay of what I've been up to is trying to close down the office and make sure that my brilliant team of staff find new jobs," he said.

"It's not just about the MP that loses on the night, it's about their staff as well and that is actually one of the hardest things to come to terms with."

As for his own future, he is "just having some early conversations and hopeful that I might land something".

"I'm really keen to do something in the disability space on the inclusion agenda," he added.

"That is a massive passion for me, having been minister for disabled people which was such a privilege."

Still only 35, Mr Pursglove said he had very little experience of being an adult outside the political world.

The morning after the election he had a realisation that his life had changed.

"That day was the first day that I'd been out of elected office since I was 18 years old," he said.

"The overriding sense that I feel is that I'm at peace with what happened.

"I don't have regrets about my time in the role, I'm really proud of the work that we did.

"I'm absolutely sure that I didn't get everything right but we always tried our best, and that's all you can do."

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