Everyone’s logged in. Quick intro, then over to the report’s author for her presentation. Everything going swimmingly. Then, mid-flow, yikes, ‘Esc’ ‘Esc’, explicit porn starts flashing across the screen.
It takes a lot to shock Rebekah Ison. After months researching the lived realities of serving politicians around the world, she’d heard it all: the social media abuse, the online trolling, the long hours, the demanding travel, the hostile press.
Little wonder that today’s parliamentarians feel in a fragile state. According to Mere Mortals, the illuminating 94-page report that Ison helped write for the Berlin-based non-profit Apolitical Foundation, 41% of those working in political life rate their mental health as ‘low’. The ‘high’ quotient: a measly 4%.
