Family intimidation

Johnny Mercer, 35. Re-elected in Plymouth, Moor View

It was the eve of the election. I was standing on a roundabout with a sign for my candidacy with my wife Felicity.

There was a lot of support. Most people waved and gave a thumbs up. But then a van pulled up right in front of me, and through an open window a 40-something-year-old man started losing his temper.

“You’ve killed people” was his general theme, interspersed with “Tory scum” and plenty of the F-word.

He pulled up on to the grass and I saw a Labour poster in his rear window.

Instead of coming to me he approached my wife (pictured with me, above).

He didn’t talk to her; he yelled in her face, pointing past her head, screaming obscenities about the “f------ Tories”.

“Oi, what on earth are you doing?” I shouted as I approached him. He turned and started walking towards me. I thought he was going to hit me. His face was full of hate and rage.

It was the visceral hatred of it that struck me. I had already become used to having a high threshold for unacceptable behaviour in this election.

When did it become OK to threaten women with violence? To scare and intimidate women in public for no reason than they support a different political party to you?

I told him to follow me round the back of the van if he wanted a chat. He started off again. I told him that his behaviour was unacceptable. I asked what was wrong with him, since when had he suffered some huge injustice that had led to this seething rage? He said he hadn’t; he was just a Labour supporter.