Gen Kitchen MP says she reads all online hate messages

Gen Kitchen said she was "very grateful" to be the new MP for Wellingborough

A newly-elected MP says she reads all the nasty comments about herself online because it "keeps me down to earth".

Labour's Gen Kitchen, 28, overturned a majority of 18,540 in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, last month.

Comments on social media have suggested she should not hold office because of her sex and her age.

"You have to have a bit of a thick skin and be able to brush it off and take control of your own mental health," she said.

Ms Kitchen said one way to cope was to be surrounded "with people that l love and will be able to tell me the truth whether I like it or not".

Going to the Houses of Commons for the very first time as an MP was "a pinch me moment", Gen Kitchen said

"I read them all because it keeps me down to earth," she told BBC Radio Northampton.

She said this was noticeable when advertising for new staff members.

"For example, when I put the jobs up [online], the most immediate thing was 'she's not even offering the average salary' and then [I] go on to Facebook, rather than X [formerly known as Twitter] and it's 'she's offering way over the average for Wellingborough' and you've got to realise, there's always two different sides," she said.

"I just have to think to myself,' I'm reading them, and I'm hearing what they're saying, and thank God I'm not married to them'."

Being an MP had been "overwhelming", she said, as extra security measures have been put in place in her home and office.

Gen Kitchen, pictured with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and another newly-elected MP, Damien Egan, is yet to make her maiden speech in the Commons

Since taking on the new job, she has received more than 700 emails, Facebook messages and letters from constituents and was getting her head round the "complex case work", she said.

"It's taking me a while to reply back and fix all those potholes that people are talking to me about," she added.

Ms Kitchen said she would make her maiden speech in the House of Commons in the next few weeks.

Her husband and parents saw her being sworn in as an MP, including her father, who was diagnosed with cancer during the campaign trail.

"It was really nice because we're not sure how much longer we have left with him," she added.

She took the Wellingborough seat from Conservative Peter Bone, who was ousted following a recall petition.