Tonia Antoniazzi is furious at the Tories but determined to keep Gower

“And I think it’s absolutely disgraceful and it needs to be called out.

“I am not going to give up this seat to a Tory, who will basically do whatever they’re told to do.”

“What he’s done to Parliament is wrong he’s taken a grenade he’s pulled the pin out and  he’s thrown it into parliament.

“And there’s people like Boris and Jacob Rees-Mogg who are going to walk away – whatever happens, whatever the result is going to be,  they’re so privileged they can walk away and it’s not going to touch them and touch their lives, like it’s going to touch my constituents.

“I just think it’s bloody, sorry – It’s disgraceful.

“You can see how angry I am, I am furious.”

Gower was one of the most marginal seats in 2015 with the Tories holding it by just 27 but by 2017 Tonia had made that a healthier 3,269 votes.

The Tory candidate Franccesca O’Brien also faced a setback early on in the campaign when comments she’d made in 2014 calling for participants in the poverty porn Benefits Street to be “put down” came to light.

But Tonia is not complacent.

“This is a marginal seat, I’ve never taken it for granted.”

Her staff quietly admit they have been surprised not to get more resources from the party centrally and a website for the campaigning group Momentum suggest activists travel to Tory-held Preseli Pembrokeshire rather than Gower.

But walking down the highstreet in Gorseinon it’s clear everyone knows who Tonia is.

One woman who stops to talk to her proudly declares.

“She’s been the best MP in this area and I sincerely hope she gets reelected – too royal, Pam Morgan, 81, declares.

“She looks after the community and that’s what it’s all about.”

But her straight talking style is not for everyone.

Cherry Hinton, 82, is put off by her “filthy language”.

She told the Mirror she is voting for Boris Johnson .

“We used to be liberals but when Clegg came in and started charging students fees. that lost me, and they’ve got worse and worse.

The last decent leader they had was Charles Kennedy.”

She continued: “I know the Tory candidate somebody dragged up something she said, six years ago.

“But as far as I’m concerned, I think this country economically is going to be better with Boris in and I’m petrified that it’s going to be a hung parliament and we’re going to have the Scots telling us what to do.”

Like many parts of South Wales there are those voting Labour, “because we always have”

Gwyneth George, 66, explained: “I would vote the Welsh but I don’t think enough people would vote to get them in so I’ll vote Labour.

She wasn’t particularly sold on Tonia – or on Jeremy Corbyn but is a creature of habit.

“I don’t particularly like her herself but I like the things that she’s saying. 

“I don’t particularly like Jeremy Corbyn but I still vote Labour because it’s what my family have always done.”  

Her daughter Rachel, 28, was still making up her mind.

She told the Mirror: “My cousin is trying to get me to vote Labour but I’m not sure.

“To be honest labour does seem to be slightly better option.

“We generally vote Labour but it all depends on who wins my vote on the day.”

Others are having a tougher time with the Labour Party’s recent changes and its leader in particular.

David Charles Howard Willis is one of them. 

“I’ve got to 77-years-old and it’s bloody terrible. 

“I’ve been a labour man all my life, I used to be union man and everything, but I can’t vote for him he’s a horrible, horrible man. I just don’t trust him.  

“He’s a liar, I think he’s a communist I just think it’s horrible. 

David will instead be voting Lib Dem for the first time, but he says he could return to his party.

“The only one I’ve got faith in is Jo Swinson quite honestly. 

“Boris the man’s a buffoon in my opinion.

“He may be a clever person but you can only see what you see on the outside he’s a buffoon.

“I wouldn’t like my country governed by him.

“If they can get some good people in the Labour Party I’ll go back to labour but definitely not while that man’s there. Horrible. Gives me a headache just thinking about it.”

Tonia is adamantly Remain in a Leave seat but says it’s not the biggest issue facing her constituents.

“Where are the benefits?

“I want to see tangible outcomes to, you know to this, it’s not about immigration”

“Locally, it’s about connectivity, because we have poor connectivity to Swansea.

 The trains weren’t electrified. You know, there needs to be a far greater investment in the network.

“The 1,200 jobs that went at Virgin Media in Swansea didn’t go because of Brexit, it went because of connectivity, it’s moved to Wythenshaw in Manchester.

“So I feel very cross that there will be jobs going  for whatever reason Brexit or not Brexit related.

“For example, 1,700 jobs going in Bridgend in the Ford factory. And then you’ve got the threat of 1,000 jobs from Tata Steel well we’ve got either side of the constituency you’ve got Port Talbot that’s a massive employer.

“A lot of my constituents work there and you’ve got Llanelli just over the road – big employer in the tin pit works.

“What is Brexit going to do for this area, what are the conservatives going to do for bringing jobs here?

“Where are the 5,000 jobs coming from by leaving the EU?”

Tonia’s office is in the centre of Gorseinon next to the library and opposite the bus station.

It’s stocked full of parcels of Christmas pressies for kids who might not get stuff from their families.

She explains: “We all like the fourth emergency service genuinely, and I’m happy to be that MP. I’m happy to be a compassionate, open door.

It’s hard to remember that the mum-of-one has only been in parliament for two and a half years.

She is as far a cry from the political stereotype of a 50-year-old man in an indentikit suit.

She was a language teacher for 20 years but also played rugby for Wales and is a darts champion.

But Tonia says that politics suits her because she is so “gobby”.

She said: “My parents always used to say, Why are you fighting other people’s battles for them?

“And I think that’s just because I am inherently that kind of person. I love it.”

But, although she’s got family support she says her 15-year-old son is a “reluctant canvasser”.

“He’s not that keen, I mean, it’s embarrassing for a 15 year old.

“He’s quite fortunate that he doesn’t have the same surname. I went back to my maiden name, because it was so good.

“I was gutted when I met Bambos Charalambous because I didn’t want anyone to have a better name than me.”

Looking at Gower on a map it’s not surprising it is a marginal seat. 

“People are very misled by the name of the constituency,” Tonia explains.

“They naturally assume that it’s all about the peninsula – it would take me 60 minutes to drive from one end to the other.

“And it’s diverse in its population and diverse in its geography.

“And that’s what I like about it as well, because 20 years I’ve been a school teacher. 

“I’m used to dealing with people from all walks of life. And I can genuinely relate to everybody. I think that’s what they like.”

As we drive along Tonia points out the salt marshes where salt marsh lamb comes from.

In the north of Gower are mining towns and the parliamentary seat scoops round Swansea. 

Like many Tonia left the area where she grew up for work.

She went to Wigan in Greater Manchester to teach but returned when she had her son. 

She became involved in politics after her own annus horibilis. 

“I was just having such a bad period of my life.

“I’d split up from my ex husband – just life happens and life just does happen.

Overnight she was the main wage earner and had to pay the mortgage.  

As a teacher the Tory’s pay freeze hit hard while also having to pay more in pension contributions and struggling with childcare costs.

Then her father dies and she had a battle with the health board about how he died. 

Tonia said: “All of those things happen to everybody in everyday life I know that.

“But I was just so angry – furious, because it was unnecessary.

“How can you be earning £38,000 and be struggling, like I was?”

Eventually her younger brother got sick of her complaining.

“He was in the Labour Party and he was like ‘look stop being so angry do something about it’, literally threw £40 across the kitchen table and said ‘I can’t sign up for you, you’ve got to sign up yourself’.

She explained: “I went online and signed up and I was out door knocking in llanelli with Nia Griffiths.

“It’s at that point in your life when you knock on other people’s doors, you’re angry with your own situation and then you go ‘hang on a minute massive, massive reality check’ when you’re picking up case work on doorsteps in communities that have been hammered.”

Since then Tonia hasn’t stopped campaigning but she has seen the situation worsen for her constituents.

“I have got friends that work in the job centre, and they tell me Tonia, it is that bad, it is terrible and my teacher mates have seen a difference in the last three or four years.

“It’s children’s life situations, their mental health issues.

“It’s poverty. It’s problems that the parents are having with with not just Universal Credit but a lot of what we get through the door are  problems with PIP assessments, that is a massive issue.

“It’s incredible to believe that people can’t hardly get into my office, yet they’re not eligible anymore to them. They’ve been told they’re fit to work.

“I mean, I would say the highest success rate of my office is actually helping people to go through that and go through those systems and claim what’s rightfully, you know, rightfully theirs for them to live the best life. And if they want to work and you know we support them into work.

“We work very closely with the job centre, we’ve you know taken on people from their disability confident scheme and, you know, we’re very involved.

“We all like the fourth emergency service genuinely, and I’m happy to be that MP.

“I’m happy to be a compassionate, open door.”

But Tonia’s point is she shouldn’t have to be.