MP Works In Supermarket

8 August 2011, 12:20 | Updated: 8 August 2011, 12:59

An MP's spent a day of his seven-week holiday from Parliament working in a supermarket.

Northampton North MP Michael Ellis (pictured) has done it to experience what it's like stacking shelves, but also to get the chance to speak to people who would not normally take the trouble to book a formal appointment with him.

"A lot of people were asking me for directions for where things were in the store, and didn't realise that I wasn't an employee and didn't know where everything was," he said.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, after the expenses scandal, he wasn't allowed on the tills.  "They showed me how things were scanned in and I sat behind a till for a time to see what it was like, but the tills are so complicated, you wouldn't normally put a work experience lad on them on his first day, I don't think."

Michael is planning to do more work experience over the summer selling fruit and veg in Northampton's Market Square, and spending time with firefighters in Northampton.