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 Women's Day was first recognised by the UN) sitting in Westminster today.

Featuring:

• Dame Karen Bradley MP – Conservative MP for Staffordshire Moorlands since 2010, a former secretary of state for Northern Ireland and at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and the current chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee. 
• Dr Ellie Chowns MP – has been the Green MP for North Herefordshire since 2024 and is the Green Party group leader in Westminster and their spokesperson on six different ministerial portfolios.
• Dr Beccy Cooper MP – has been the Labour MP for Worthing West since 2024 and sits on the Health and Social Care Committee.