I'm thrilled to be your Labour PPC in Melksham and Devizes! Fourteen years of crisis and chaos.

Full statement

Fourteen years of devastation for working people and public services. Like you, I won’t rest until we get this government out. And like you, I’m more than ready, and I have more than 40 years of campaigning experience to draw on.

My career has been all about firing people up to act for positive change. As a campaigner and advocate, and as a volunteer with community-based groups here in the UK and in Zambia: I was part of a coalition that secured recognition of animal sentience in UK law in 2022. I set up the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Relevant Science at Westminster. I worked with Labour MEPs on groundbreaking environmental, health and consumer protection laws. And I delivered the second-biggest petition ever to the United Nations, with a whopping eight million signatures.

Deeply rooted in our movement, I grew up near Bath. My first election campaign was in Wansdyke in 1983. Then, at the age of 18, I left the West Country to become a student in Sheffield, inspired by its reputation as a Labour stronghold holding out against Thatcher. I quickly became active in the National Organisation of Labour Students, and I was elected as national Women’s Officer.

After university, I moved to London where I campaigned against the poll tax and local health cuts before moving to Brussels to work for the Socialist Group of MEPs. There, I was seconded to organise shadow cabinet visits in the 1997 general election.

Most recently, I have been vice-chair of membership and an active campaigner in Hereford and South Herefordshire. I am a member of the GMB, the Co-op Party, Labour Women’s Network, the Labour Movement for Europe and I am involved with the Fabian Women’s Network.

Everything I have learnt – from delivering Labour Party election leaflets as a child with my mum in the 1980s, to changing laws in the 2020s – has equipped me to become a Member of Parliament.

I look forward to working with you to run the election campaign of our lives and help secure the Labour government our country so desperately needs.