 Parliament wasn't built for people like me and there are reminders and one statistic that I find absolutely shocking but it sums it up is the fact that there are more horses in portraits on the parliamentary estate than women and that just shows the fact that it was built for a certain type of person that doesn't look or sound like me. Are there any brown and black women on portraits? I don't believe there are any and if they are they're probably in the background somewhere but I haven't spotted any at all. So do you buy the argument that's sort of been made by Benites for a very long time which is Parliament is intentionally set up to constantly remind you that you're a parliamentarian first, a socialist second which is to say you're there to represent the general interests of the British establishment rather than the interests of working people? I agree with that critique and you see the pressures of parliamentarianism right from the get-go as a new MP we are told that our maiden speeches shouldn't be political and you see that. Really? But they shouldn't be political? They shouldn't be political. The convention is that maiden speeches, your very first speech in the chamber shouldn't be political and even other traditions and conventions referring to MPs including Tory MPs as honourable members all of those things reflect this pressure to conform and to not challenge the status quo and for me I believe it's absolutely important to reflect the conflict that is happening within society. We have seen a decade of Tory cartoons in 40 years of deindustrialisation. We have seen our communities really suffer. People are going to food banks in the sixth richest economy in the world and that's become a norm. I think it's absolutely outrageous and I think it's important for MPs to be political in every sense. That's the job that they have, they have constituents to serve and for me I have been very explicit in the fact that I am proudly working class and I'm here to serve my constituents and working class people and that means fighting back against anything that harms their interests. On that note we're going to watch Zara's maiden speech in the House of Commons in January was it? Or December? It feels like a long time ago but yeah January. January. We have seen Australia burn and Indonesia drown. We have seen our earth teeter on the brink of ruin. We have heard this warning of scientists and we know where the blame lies. It's with the 100 companies that are responsible for 70% of global pollution. It's with the billionaires who got rich polluting our rivers and pumping out carbon. It's with an economic system that puts the profits of the rich above the needs of the people. So make no mistake about it. The climate crisis is a capitalist crisis and the climate struggle is a class struggle across borders. Whether you're in Coventry or Canberra, Doncaster or Delhi, if you're working class you'll suffer the worst effects of floods, fires, droughts and devastation while the rich will build ever higher walls to protect themselves. That's what's coming unless we take bold action. It's what will happen unless we unite working people across borders to say our lives are more important than anyone's profits. It's what will happen unless we put power in the hands of the working class to put people and planet first. This is the urgent call of our times an international Green New Deal to transition from disaster capitalism to a new society created on the principles of equality, freedom and justice. Building green industries, providing good unionised jobs, democratising our economy and eradicating poverty. That new society has an old name. It's a name that inspired past generations in the fight against mass unemployment, war and fascism. It's the name they gave to a decent, liveable, healthy future on this planet. That name is socialism. That's a great speech. Congratulations. Thank you. What was the response to it from fellow parliamentarians? Obviously on Twitter and Facebook it goes down very well with the Labour membership, with the Labour voters. Oh, this is promising, this is new. But with the people around you, what was the sense you got as you said those words? So, across the chamber, I could see Tory MPs who were raising their voices while I was delivering the speech. They were gesticulating and making sounds to distract me and to essentially make me uncomfortable. So that's what happened in the chamber. Afterwards, I've been told that I'm a firebrand and that was a bit controversial by MPs on the Labour side included. Yeah, but in the same vein, I've had some MPs who have been very happy and very proud of that speech. John McDonnell was the person who gave me the advice to not shy away from the politics and he actually advised me to do it as soon as possible. During the Queen's speech, the reason being is that you have to do your maiden speech to be able to do any other speeches. You can intervene and make those small interventions during a debate, but you can't make an actual speech in Parliament until you've done your maiden speech. Everything you said is quite common sense. There's a climate crisis, we need to respond politically. The only way that can really happen is actually from working people of all backgrounds coming together. Why would that make you a firebrand, do you think, saying those words? I think the fact that I was explicitly using class-based politics, that was highlighted, but it was actually the 40 years of thatcherism that got me mentioned in opinion pieces by a lot of centrist commentators that still are publishing articles every week on that, even though Lisa Nandi has also referred to 40 years of neoliberalism or thatcherism, but they seem to be focused on me for some reason. There's a quote from Peter Mandleton in 2002 where he says, thatcherism won, we're all thatcherites, and it's repeatedly said by precisely these people, but then when you rehearse their own words back to them. Tony Blair in 2013 literally said that he saw his job as building on some of the things thatcher did, not reversing them, and when we look at the economic settlement, we see that nothing's really changed. We're still heavily finance-based economy. We look at the power the city of London has. We look at the fact that none of the anti-trade union legislation have been reversed in that time. While there were great things achieved under new labour, like Sure Start, like the national minimum wage, which was John Smith, but yeah, I mean, it wasn't Tony Blair. People forget that. Fair enough, but these things that the Open University, things that we should be proud of, but fundamentally, we didn't seek to change the neoliberal consensus.