Mark Bittlestone is a standup comedian who has lived in and run comedy nights in Brixton and Clapham for a decade.

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He has seen the area struggle first hand as more and more funding has been cut by central government. A homelessness epidemic, rubbish filling the streets, ordinary people and cultures who built the area priced out, while developers are supported by Lambeth’s Labour Council in their quest to bulldoze its historic centres. Teaching History to Sixth Form students at a school in Vauxhall, Mark saw the real-life impact of rampant inequality in a borough where magnificent townhouses stand cheek-by-jowl with widespread poverty and child homelessness.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza tore a hole in his conception of the world - a world he didn’t find very funny anymore. He felt an unabashed, unrelenting fury that this could happen, 80 years on from The Holocaust, 80 years from when we collectively said Never Again. Howling about it on social media and raising funds for Medical Aid for Palestinians failed to abate his rage and, realising the interconnected nature of struggle, he decided to channel this fury into fighting local injustice. If elected, he will work tirelessly to improve ordinary people’s lives and undo the damage done by 16 years of unrelenting austerity and 40 years of a profit-first housing system.