OXFORDSHIRE’s newest MP Nicola Blackwood took her place on the famous green benches of the Commons for the first time this week.

As she entered the chamber as MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, the Oxford music graduate admitted feeling a little overwhelmed.

“I thought ‘My goodness, I am one of the people making the big decisions now so I better get it right’,” she said.

“There was a really hopeful mood after all the uncertainty of the week before.”

And, despite not being able to bag a seat, Miss Blackwood said she had a great view of proceedings.

“I was sat on the stairs squeezed in between quite a few MPs,” she said. “But it was a centre court seat.”

Conservative Miss Blackwood’s victory over Liberal Democrat Dr Evan Harris by just 176 votes was one of election night’s big shocks.

Miss Blackwood said the last two weeks had been an amazing, if a little unexpected, experience.

She said Westminster had a new school term feel about it and many of the first-time MPs were still getting lost in the corridors of power.

She said: “People are beginning to settle down and offices are being allocated on the basis of seniority. There is a hot-desk system in the committee rooms and we are on Wi-Fi and doing emails and our case work.”

Miss Blackwood is looking forward to making her first Parliamentary speech, but said she would decide on the subject once she knew the date for it.