My mother is an extremely kind and generous person.


“It was before there were many female


doctors and she made great compromises in her career for me and my brother. She took herself off the career path that she could have had.”


There were debates around the dinner


table about politics, although her parents were not overtly party political animals.


At primary school, Mrs Whately found another outlet for a fiercely competitive edge and tried desperately to beat another “really clever” pupil to be top of the class. At this point, she makes a rolling punch motion to illustrate the point.


“I wasn’t always very well-behaved,” she sniggers. “I wasn’t head girl material.”


Like a million little girls before her, she had developed a love of ponies. After relentless pestering, she was allowed riding lessons and excelled.


After her primary school, she went


on to an all-girls Roman Catholic school, a place she damns with a hint of faint praise.


“By that time, I was getting regular riding lessons and was talent-spotted to


I was good at physics and that I certainly could get a C grade. They didn’t understand that I wanted an A.”


To have any chance of following her


father to Oxford, she took the decision to leave and enrolled as a weekly boarder in the sixth form at the Westminster school.


“I wanted a more academic education.


I would rather do more than miss out on opportunities, if it’s possible. I would rather work a bit harder,” she discloses.


She emerged with three As (chemistry, maths and biology) and a B in history and secured a place at Lady Margaret Hall college at Oxford. She switched from human sciences to a philosophy, politics and economics degree after the first year.


“I realised I was more interested in political systems and philosophy than human sciences.”


Although she became a member of the


Oxford Union, the world’s most famous debating society, she elected to speak only when she had something to say, rather than the “grandstanding” of her more ostentatious peers.


Nor did student politics have much appeal. Mrs Whately adds a little wearily: “University politics did not


Mrs Whately switched from human sciences to a philosophy, politics and economics degree after the first year. “I realised I was more interested in political systems and philosophy than human sciences.”


ride other people’s horses. It became quite a big part of my life and this was a school where it was possible for me to do that.


“My frustration with the school was that it wasn’t very intellectually stimulating. I remember being told that


seem to be about getting stuff done. I was a member of the Oxford Union, which just seemed to be a lot of grandstanding.


“I haven’t had a calculating approach


to politics and being noticed (at the Oxford Union) wasn’t something that ever crossed my mind. I said something when I had something to say.”


She joined Price Waterhouse Cooper


after university before joining AOL Time Warner, negotiating deals for six years.


Mrs Whately joined the shadow culture


secretary Hugo Swire to develop policy on the media and, with a taste for the political fray, soon started applying for seats to fight for a place in the House of Commons.


Mrs Whately campaigned and


performed well (whilst five months pregnant) against the Liberal Democrat Ed Davey in Kingston, south west London, something which gave her invaluable experience in securing the candidacy to succeed Sir Hugh Robertson in Kent. She won the seat by a handsome margin in 2015.


Top right Helen Whately with husband Marcus


Her political awakening had happened during the tenure of Margaret Thatcher and the once-unlikely notion of a female Prime Minister was a glass ceiling already smashed.


There is little doubt she is ambitious –


fiercely so – and with an unquenchable thirst for hard work. Even the prospect of her constituency being gobbled up by neighbouring MPs in boundary changes due in about 2020 (although not seen as likely by some in Westminster) does little to dim the vim.


And as Mrs Whately will admit, she has


a tendency to want to take on more challenges rather than shed any to make life easier.


As one seasoned parliamentary


colleague noted wryly: “Helen is talented, incredibly hard-working and bright.


“Perhaps all new MPs need to learn this place (the Houses of Parliament) is built on committee work. She is the sort of person who likes committees to have odd numbers – preferably under three.”


Asked if she is ambitious, Mrs Whately


reverts to the book of stock answers, offering platitudes about making the country “better for people” and improving the NHS.


In plain English, she is asked: “How far do you want to go?”


There is a pause, then a smile, before she says: “I seize opportunities when they come my way. There could be some pretty significant boundary changes on the way so I intend to make good use of the time I might have.”


Mid Kent Living 9


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