Ruth “Ellie” Christopher. “It’s about principles,” she says brightly, as electoral results scroll in with mathematical cruelty.

She has the rare gift of predicting outcomes — except her own.

Yet defeat has never dampened her. If anything, she treats elections like seasonal festivals. Posters, slogans, mild humiliation — and then a celebratory drink.

She's very funny. Effortlessly so. The sort of person who can turn a landslide loss into a dinner anecdote before the ballots are fully counted.

As a pundit, she is sharp. Quick-witted. Capable of dismantling a policy proposal with three statistics and a raised eyebrow. On television panels, she sparkles — animated, incisive, slightly mischievous. Viewers adore her. Voters, mysteriously, hesitate.

​

She is also an avid reader. Voracious. Towering piles of books lean precariously in her flat — history, memoir, political theory, the occasional scandalous novel she insists is “research.” Ask her if she enjoyed a book and you will receive not a summary, but a symposium.

“So what’s it about?” someone once asked.

“Well,” Ellie began.

Forty-five minutes later, she was still contextualising Chapter Two.

She cannot summarise. It is against her nature. Every theme must be unpacked, every subplot defended, every minor character granted full citizenship rights in the conversation. By the time she reaches the ending, the tea is cold and two people have discreetly checked their watches.

“Concise?” she says, genuinely puzzled. “But that would leave things out.”

​

Away from politics, she is a devoted pet carer. Not sentimental — practical. If a dog limps, she has a treatment plan. Does it not work? She produces  another dog. If a cat sneezes, she has already scheduled the vet. She speaks to animals with warmth but administers medicine with military precision.

“You can resent me later,” she tells the spaniel, firmly.

She is a spendthrift in the most theatrical way. Money arrives and immediately develops travel plans. She buys books she’s already read, scarves she absolutely did not need, and plane tickets with dangerous spontaneity.

Ah, travel.

She adores New York.

Calls it “N York,” as though she owns partial naming rights.

In the Big Apple, she transforms. Rents fast cars — unnecessarily fast cars — and drives through Manhattan traffic as if negotiating a coalition government: assertive, strategic, occasionally chaotic.

“Acceleration is clarity,” she once declared, merging heroically.

She loves the noise, the lights, the reckless possibility. A pundit in daylight, a velocity enthusiast at dusk.

Romantically? Let us say she believes in enthusiasm. She approaches affection with the same gusto she applies to campaigns — optimistic, energetic, sometimes surprisingly well-funded.

Friends describe her as joyful. Radiant. Slightly dangerous to both budgets and expectations.

She laughs loudly. Loses elections gracefully. Cares for pets competently. Books flights impulsively.   Ellie’s politics are as unpredictable as her left-arm unorthodox bowling — that rare “chinaman” art where the ball drifts in politely and then, at the last moment, betrays every reasonable assumption.

Ruth "Ellie" Christopher: forever on the ballot, rarely on the winning side — but always, unmistakably, on the side of Afternoon Tea.