'I'm not too posh for Skegness' says new MP's partner Isabel Oakeshott

Isabel has hit back at the disbelievers who, following a tweeted image of her looking glum, thought it must be at the prospect of having to spend time in the resort.

In one of her latest columns in The Telegraph, she tells the ‘elites’ who consider themselves the arbiters of good taste ‘why they’re wrong about this Lincolnshire retreat’.

For a town, which on several occasions has been ranked bottom in Which? surveys of the best resorts in the UK, this is praise indeed from a lady who doesn’t hold back in her opinions, whether in her writing or on television.

To those on social media who say she won’t be able to cope with ‘faded fairground attractions, deep-fried food and fat people’ and will never be seen there, she writes she has news for these ‘snobs’.

“I like Skegness. For starters, it’s astonishingly good value,” she says. “I rocked up at an ice cream van by the pier and ordered a Mr Whippy, and for £2, a cheery fellow handed me a big enough cone to feed the entire family. It was twice the size and half the cost of what they sell at the van by the London Eye, and tasted every bit as good. Even more encouragingly, the ice cream seller, along with a surprising number of other people in Skegness, seemed extraordinarily pleased to see me, which is not a reaction that is by any means guaranteed in other parts of the country.”

While the weather “can’t compete with the guaranteed sun of Ibiza”, she describes the beach as “far less crowded and at least clean”. “Who cares about a bit of cloud, when there are rollercoasters to ride, candy floss and Pick ’n’ Mix sweets to stuff, and giant fluffy ducks to win if only you can shoot the target or chuck enough balls in a net?” she writes.

Overall she says “it is a place of totally unpretentious fun for people of all ages and backgrounds”.

Clearly, it will be interesting, come April next year when the annual Which? report no doubt gives Skegness a bashing again, whether her opinion changes.

Lots of locals will, however, will agree she has earned an ice-cream for this article.