Tory MP Johnny Mercer’s spouse Felicity hits again at vile Twitter assaults led by Carol Vorderman

You may say what you want about Johnny Mercer’s spouse Felicity — ‘grifter’, ‘deluded toddler’, ‘t**t’, ‘rancid’, ‘thick’ is a smattering of the appalling name-calling directed her manner on social media this week — however you possibly can’t knock her sense of humour.

Take when ‘movie star assault canine’ (Mrs M’s phrases) Carol Vorderman accused her of ‘harassment’, claiming Felicity had despatched her ‘actually misogynistic’ stuff in a very nasty, ongoing Twitter spat between the Countdown-presenter-turned-anti-Tory-activist and the spouse of Johnny Mercer, Minister of State for Veterans’ Affairs.

Felicity responded: ‘I did name her “large and bouncy” as soon as when she saved calling the PM “little” to patronise him. I apologise.’ She ended her publish with a hand-over-mouth laughing emoji.

Or take final week when one in every of Ms Vorderman’s ‘rabid canine’ (once more, Mrs M’s phrases) Twitter followers — she has 831,200 in comparison with Felicity’s 24,900 — superimposed Mr Bean actor Rowan Atkinson’s face on to hers.

Felicity punched again with a publish: ‘I had a stunning vacation in Turkey final week; took benefit of a budget beauty surgical procedure to present my face a brand new lease of life. Acquired to maintain up with all these celebs doing it they usually do appear so eager on us Mercers.’

Johnny Mercer’s spouse Felicity  says she will not ‘simply sit again and ignore this vile, vile stuff that’s being posted’

The tongue-in-cheek comment was interpreted as a sideways snipe at 62-year-old Ms Vorderman, who’s repeatedly denied having cosmetic surgery, regardless of intense media hypothesis.

‘I’m not an authority on what Carol Vorderman has or hasn’t performed to her physique,’ Felicity says now. ‘However I’ve learn what everybody else has learn so had slightly enjoyable [on Twitter] in response to the doctored image.

‘I’m not going to only sit again and ignore this vile, vile stuff that’s being posted. To say all Tories are revolting, disgusting and corrupt shouldn’t be true. I’ll push again on it as a result of I’m married to a Tory and I do know there’s nothing revolting, hateful or disgusting about him.’

A notification on her cellphone alerts her to a brand new tweet. She appears to be like at it, then rolls her eyes.

‘You simply assume: “I’ve bought to snort,” as a result of in any other case . . . simply take a look at my feed, take a look at the feedback. It’s an absolute cesspit.’

It’s. The dearth of accountability and ‘Wild West’ really feel to the web world, the place nameless social media customers contemplate it good sport to verbally assault and, at instances, threaten these within the public eye with impunity, signifies that most of the feedback usually are not publishable in a household newspaper. Some have been forwarded to the police.

And the threats usually are not simply on-line. Because the murders of MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess, the Mercers’ indifferent four-bedroom residence, the place they stay with their three youngsters — Amalie, 14, Joey, ten and three-year-old Audrey — is fitted with panic buttons and safety cameras.

There’s an ongoing Twitter spat between the Countdown-presenter-turned-anti-Tory-activist Carol Vorderman (pictured) and the spouse of Johnny Mercer, Minister of State for Veterans’ Affairs

All publish going into their constituency workplace is scanned they usually have each needed to attend situational consciousness programs to show them how to answer a menace to their security.

Felicity says: ‘There’s a safety threat to MPs. Trolls on Twitter are in all probability huge wimps, aren’t they? However, when you have been whipping up all this hatred and the rest occurs to any person, you’d must assume: “Did I’ve a hand in that?”’

In November 2020, throughout the Covid pandemic, when her three-year-old was just a few months outdated, Felicity was despatched a nappy coated in human excrement by the publish.

She suspects it was despatched in response to the vote on footballer Marcus Rashford’s free college meals marketing campaign, which Johnny, together with nearly all of Conservative MPs following the federal government whip, voted in opposition to.

‘I used to be nonetheless within the zone of getting had a child so I used to be fairly emotional and it was the pandemic,’ she remembers. ‘The very last thing you wish to do is pull bodily fluids from a Jiffy bag.

‘Johnny was sitting the place you might be.’ Felicity nods to a chair on the kitchen island. ‘I mentioned: “Oh my God, it’s s**t!” He ran over, grabbed it and threw it on the grass.’

You understand from the horror on her face that Felicity is reliving that second. I believe she has many instances.

‘I couldn’t cease washing my fingers. I felt actually susceptible, simply gutted by the entire thing, and washed my fingers till I had no cleaning soap.

Felicity and Jonny on their marriage ceremony day in 2014

‘We’ve bought all these safety measures however this was despatched to our residence. The place did they discover our tackle? I don’t know. It’s troublesome. If you concentrate on it an excessive amount of you’d by no means depart the home. You may’t actually stay like that, are you able to?’

The appalling incident ignited one thing in Felicity: fury, and a willpower to combat again. She determined to open a Twitter account to face up in opposition to such hatred.

‘I needed to take management. Present them who we have been. Till then I’d been beneath the impression that in case your husband is in politics, you’re simply The Good Spouse. You don’t say something, you simply watch it unfold. Properly, I’m not constructed like that. If I see an injustice now, I’ll go for it.’

She sees lots of injustice within the Twitter posts of Ms Vorderman, who was condemned by Stroud MP Siobhan Baillie for consuming ‘political hate for breakfast to get social media hits’.

Ms Vorderman ratcheted up her assaults on Tory politicians earlier this 12 months when she took it upon herself to name out those that hadn’t included ‘Conservative’ on their Twitter profile. Bizarrely, for a really sensible girl, she appeared to view it as some form of cover-up, sustaining the culprits, who included Boris Johnson, Theresa Might and Liz Truss, have been too ashamed to name themselves Tories. She inspired her followers to focus on their MPs, one in every of whom was Johnny.

There was an instantaneous uptick of significantly nasty feedback on the Mercers’ social media.

‘The entire thing was ridiculous as a result of there’s an excellent cause why MPs — Labour and Conservative — don’t put their celebration on their social media,’ says Felicity. ‘It’s as a result of they’ve been elected to symbolize their complete constituency, regardless of who they voted for. Who on Earth wants Carol Vorderman to inform them Boris Johnson is a Conservative? It might be laughable if the response wasn’t so excessive.

‘All of a sudden we have been getting this visitors asking: “Are you embarrassed? Are you this? Are you that?” Obscene stuff.

‘I tagged her in on the tweets to point out her the abuse she was sending our manner.’

This week Ms Vorderman posted a video of these tweets as proof of being ‘harassed’, which is when Felicity tells me: ‘Should you don’t snort you’ll cry.

‘For me, it’s about Johnny. I don’t care what they are saying about me, however I really feel very protecting over him.

‘He’s one of the best particular person I do know. To look at your favorite particular person being attacked on a regular basis is de facto, actually exhausting,’ she says, her voice thick with emotion. ‘I’m not alone in that. There are numerous different spouses up and down the land, throughout the political divide, who would provide the identical story.

‘I believe folks ought to realise how politicians and their households are being handled. Somebody like Carol Vorderman makes a direct assault on us and, growth!’ She throws her arms within the air as an instance. ‘“The Mercers are w*****s”, “The Mercers are this”, “The Mercers are that”. Then it turns into extra private.’

Johnny’s Plymouth Moor View seat is without doubt one of the nation’s extra marginal constituencies, and a ballot has proven it’s going be tightly fought on the subsequent election.

On July 8, Carol Vorderman remarked on Twitter how neither of the Mercers has a college diploma, asking: ‘So who’d make use of them?’

The Twitter pile-on was swift, with feedback like, ‘You guys are clearly thick’, ‘The gravy prepare’s ended’ and ‘You’re all going to starve and die’.

‘I discover it actually horrifying. She pushes this hatred on the market, after which everybody who can’t appear to assume for themselves piles on prime,’ says Felicity. ‘As if we didn’t have jobs earlier than politics. I’ll do no matter it takes. Once we first moved to Plymouth I used to be a cleaner as a result of I couldn’t discover a job. Johnny labored on a constructing web site to boost cash for his marketing campaign [to become an MP] right here. We each roll our sleeves up.’

Certainly, I’ve identified the Mercers for a number of years now. They’re neither self-entitled nor out-of-touch, they usually’re definitely not ‘thick’.

Johnny, a Sandhurst-trained former Military captain, is a considerate, dry-witted man who works each hour God sends for veterans. Whereas he may not have a long time of political expertise beneath his belt like so a lot of his colleagues who’ve harboured Cupboard ambitions since their undergraduate days, he’s a quick learner. And, in fact, he has Felicity.

‘Johnny didn’t know the way to promote himself when he first went into politics. Within the Military he was a tiny cog in an enormous machine, the place you’re supposed to only slot in. However I can discuss the hind legs off a donkey, so we’re a crew,’ she says.

Johnny is rightly happy with his spouse, whom he married in 2014. ‘Johnny advised me a few of his colleagues have mentioned how sensible it’s I’m sticking up for them in opposition to this hatred. He’s advised me how proud he’s of me. He loves it that I’m keen to place myself on the market for him.’

Felicity is a sparky girl who’s a skilled lifeguard and works for Johnny in his constituency. You understand jolly effectively she’d stroll by hell and excessive water for her household.

Standing up for veterans: Former commando Johnny

‘That is actual, not the nonsense on Twitter,’ she says, gesturing round her open-plan kitchen the place the older two ladies be a part of within the dialog. This can be a household that ‘doesn’t do secrets and techniques’ and each ladies have been made conscious by Felicity of ‘sure issues and what to do’.

It’s not what she signed up for when Johnny, a former commando who served three excursions in Afghanistan, determined to enter politics in 2014, earlier than social media started to dominate.

‘Johnny was operating the commando course in Okehampton,’ she says. ‘It was the day that [they realised] extra service personnel had killed themselves after coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan than had been killed on operations there. He had seen lots of his buddies falling aside as a result of they weren’t in a position to cope with what had occurred.

‘He couldn’t put up with it any extra. He mentioned: “I’m going to must do one thing about it. I’ve bought to repair it. I’m going to must change into a politician and alter veteran care on this nation.”

‘Johnny has at all times been a doer. I believed he was loopy at first, nevertheless it didn’t take me lengthy to grasp he was 100 per cent proper.’

In opposition to the chances, Johnny, who had no expertise in politics, stood on the 2015 election as a Conservative candidate and took the seat from Labour by simply 1,026 votes. He elevated his result in 5,019 in 2017 and 12,897 in Boris Johnson’s landslide victory of 2019, after which he was appointed Minister for Defence Folks and Veterans.

Johnny lastly achieved his ambition of a separate division for veterans when he turned Minister of State for Veterans’ Affairs in 2022 — till Liz Truss sacked him two months later. A livid Felicity took to Twitter to decry Truss as ‘an imbecile’.

‘I used to be completely fuming,’ she says. ‘When she and Rishi have been up in opposition to one another for the management, Johnny mentioned the veteran stuff he’d constructed up was his solely pores and skin within the sport. I heard him on the cellphone to her twice and each instances she’d mentioned issues wouldn’t change. Then he was the primary particular person she sacked.

‘I don’t know whether or not she simply can’t management herself or whether or not she was nervous, however she laughed when she advised him she was going to bin him.

‘He mentioned to her: “I don’t perceive. This can be a division I’ve put collectively. It hasn’t been going very lengthy. Why dismantle it? Why needlessly upset 2.2 million veterans?” She simply form of laughed and mentioned: “I can’t inform you that.”

‘He was damaged by it. I do know folks name it the sport of politics and also you count on issues to go up and down, however this was one thing else. Why was there any have to dismantle the division? Was it as a result of he wasn’t her buddy? That was after I broke my Twitter rule about solely ever reacting to the abuse we get. I’m not a bully. I don’t go after folks. However after I referred to as Liz an imbecile that was me tweeting off my very own bat. I used to be furious.’

She started a petition to reinstate a devoted Minister of State for Veterans’ Affairs which, inside days, acquired greater than 10,000 signatures. After which, as she says: ‘Truss was gone and Rishi put the workplace of Veterans’ Affairs again.’

Johnny has solely ever needed to do his finest for veterans. He was on Sky Information selling an initiative to finish homelessness for them when Carol Vorderman boiled his views on meals banks all the way down to an incendiary tweet.

He’d been requested by interviewer Kay Burley if there was any want for navy personnel to make use of meals banks. He replied: ‘These are private selections about how individuals are budgeting each month.’

He added: ‘I believe being within the navy nonetheless affords you a superb wage and a superb high quality of life and that may proceed to be the case.’

Taking his phrases out of context, Carol Vorderman then posted on Twitter that Johnny Mercer ‘thinks meals financial institution use is a private choice. He’s improper. I grew up in poverty. Mum had 5 jobs, almost killed her. It was NOT a selection.’

All of a sudden, the Military captain who has devoted his political profession to doing proper by those that have served within the Forces, stood accused of claiming the whole lot improper.

He determined to go on Query Time to set the matter straight.

‘She’d already made out he was some form of maniac. Twitter went mad, like: “Oh my God, Johnny Mercer is so conceited.” They didn’t like the way in which he was sitting, didn’t like the way in which he was different folks. They didn’t like something.

‘The humorous factor was he phoned me straight afterwards to ask me how I believed it had gone, however needed to hold up as a result of so many individuals from the Query Time viewers needed a selfie with him. Twitter hated him; the viewers didn’t.

Individuals who aren’t glued to it usually are not full of hatred. They’re getting on with their lives. They’re extra rational; honest. You may have 1,000,000 rabid followers on Twitter however that doesn’t make it actual. It’s not what we see on the streets.

‘That’s why I get actually protecting of Johnny. I don’t agree with that degree of blanket hatred when she [Vorderman] tries to incite folks to imagine all Tories are evil and corrupt. It’s unhealthy and, at the moment, presumably harmful.

‘I used to be going to say she actually annoys me, however really she actually p***es me off.’ A lot in order that I ponder, if Carol Vorderman was in bother on the native swimming pool, would Felicity use her lifeguard abilities to leap in and pull her out?

‘I’d save anyone. I don’t must agree with them,’ she says. ‘That’s the entire premise of the true world we stay in. You may not agree with somebody, however that doesn’t imply you want them any ailing will.’