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International Women's Day special: The inside story of life as an MP

What it is really like to be an MP in 2026? How unusual is the life of a politician? How does power work in parliament? And how can MPs try to have an impact from government or the opposition benches?

For this special International Women's Day episode of Inside Briefing, three MPs – Conservative Karen Bradley, Labour's Beccy Cooper, and Ellie Chowns of the Green Party – head to the IfG podcast studio to explore the challenges, surprises and perhaps frustrations of life in parliament as one of the 263 female MPs (as a point of comparison there were just 27 female MPs in 1975 when International…

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