Opinion: 'Learning that politics is a long journey', writes Peterborough MP Paul Bristow

Recently I went back to my university. Not to study, but to visit. I was the guest speaker at the Lancaster University Conservative Society, writes Peterborough MP Paul Bristow.

Two decades ago, I was one of its members.

As the chairman, it was my job to persuade speakers to trek hundreds of miles to speak to enthusiastic but small groups of students.

Then as now, proud Conservatives were a minority on campus. We were good at drinking beer, but we weren’t fashionable, either politically or (now I think of it) in terms of our clothing.

It was partly the era. I was there during the years of Tony Blair’s dominance, although his introduction of tuition fees wasn’t exactly popular.

Despite that, Conservatism was and remains a hard sell among students.

The ‘revolutionary chic’ of the left, wanting to topple, overturn and burn things down is often a better fit with a late-teenage mindset.

The value of our institutions and inherited tradition, less so.

And the more ‘educated’ some people think they are, the more they think they know best. This group want to redesign everything and society becomes victim to their experiments.

That kind of liberal-left groupthink was dubbed ‘political correctness’ then. These days, it’s ‘woke’ and even more mindless and destructive.

Lancaster University’s Conservatives were never that, but nor were we easy to visit. My Peterborough-to-campus journey this week has given me flashbacks of days lost in traffic and on trains.

It’s worth it when you arrive. The University is on a hill outside the city, with sweeping views across Morecambe Bay to the Lake District. Weather permitting, it’s a spectacular backdrop.

As a modern university, the same praise can’t be applied to the buildings, although many aren’t bad.

There are plenty of new blocks since my student days, providing an odd mix of the strange and very familiar.

Local politics in Lancaster hasn’t changed all that much either.

Labour still struggle on the city council against an array of Greens and Independents, with a hardy Conservative insurgency.

There’s still a Labour MP with a small majority.

Back in 2001, we had a young candidate who matched our enthusiasm. We banged on doors. We delivered leaflets. We frequently got drenched in rain showers.

He lost on an abandoned second recount at around 3am in the morning. You may have heard of him - his name was Steve Barclay.

It’s a good lesson for students today that a failure needn’t be the last word.

As well as being the MP for Whittlesey and familiar to many Peterborough residents, Steve is back as the Secretary of State for Health.

I hope my own example shows that, with a bit of effort and a bit of luck, they can return home after graduating and, one day, become the MP for their own town or city.

That’s worth a long journey.