Alexia Antoniou 3rd Year Politics Student

Before I even began working as an intern for Jonathan Djanogly Conservative MP for Huntingdon in parliament, he invited me to the State Opening of Parliament with the Queen.

(I am in the centre-right front row behind the fourth Beefeater with the dark hair!)

After such a wonderful occasion I got a true and clear insight into what day to day parliamentary business is like. My main project during my internship was to dissect a database of previous correspondence that Mr Djanogly had with his constituents, as well as others whom he had had past relations with. My aim was to extract email addresses so an e-bulletin could be sent to them and hence ideas and updates could reach a larger number of people.

This task was essential and important it allow Mr Djanogly to contact as many constituents as possible. It was also interesting for me to see what kinds of issues ordinary voters are most concerned with and to see how he responded to everyone. In addition to my main project, I was able to reply to invitations that Mr Djanogly was asked to attend. This was very insightful as I began to understand the reasons that certain organisations wanted him to be in attendance of their own events. I saw that MP’s have a great amount of influence over people’s perceptions of businesses and can make a positive influence on the economy. Aside for assisting with office and administrative activities, I was fortunate enough to attend the House debates and select committees. I watched David Cameron make his statement on the EU which was remarkable. The debate was very lively between Conservative and Labour MP’s and I certainly realised that watching these kind of debates on TV is a terrible substitute for actually being there! I also watched a committee meeting regarding the standards review which included Rt Hon Andrew Langsley and Angela Eagle. Overall, I had one of the most amazing summers while being a Parliamentary Intern and I made some lifelong friends. On my last day, as I walked out of Portcullis House, I was certain that I had made the correct decision to study politics and focus on a career in public affairs.