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We can make sure that every child, worker, and pensioner in Loughborough, Shepshed, and the villages does more than just survive. We can build a country in which they thrive.
As an Economist, trade union rep, and a teacher, I’ve dedicated my life to building that country.
When wages have fallen by £2,800 since 2010, when families can’t afford the basics, when pensioners are freezing in their homes, and when young people can’t afford to start families, it is clear we need change.
We need change because of decisions made in the Treasury. I would know, I used to work there.
I don’t just talk about change. I’ve spent my entire adult life fighting for and achieving it.
As an Economist, I spent two years working to end poverty inside the Somaliland government, one of the poorest and most fragile nations on earth.
As a teacher, I taught disadvantaged children to help them get into university. That doubled the chances of those kids getting into good universities.
As a trade union rep, I’ve fought and won for my members. When my employer threatened my low-paid teaching colleagues with a 33% pay cut during the pandemic, I organised my members and put a stop to it.
I’m serious about winning. Because I know we need to step up and deliver the people of Loughborough a Labour victory.
I’m currently the Head of Economics at a progressive think tank. I lead a team of economists that designs the policies that will ensure every person in this country has enough money to thrive, public services they can rely on, and a Green New Deal that will get us to Net Zero with good jobs across the country.
During the pandemic, I worked for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on who would lose their job due to COVID-19, where jobs would be lost, and how the government should respond to stop a wave of unemployment. Our proposed Job Support Scheme was to be rolled out by the Chancellor prior to the resumption of the national lockdown.
I was also the first ever Economist to work for Somaliland’s Ministry of Finance where I helped end extreme poverty. Somaliland is one of the world’s poorest and most fragile nations. While in Somaliland, I co-authored their National Development Plan, designed their Sustainable Development Policy Strategies (adopted by both the current and former Presidents), led their budget policy process, and designed their first ever fiscal and monetary policy frameworks.
During my time at HM Treasury, I analysed the impact of policies and spending on households and led briefing on inequality and poverty. At the Department of Work and Pensions I analysed and costed social security policies as well as conducted research on the future of social security.
My research involves using microsimulation modelling as well as econometric and causal inference methods to analyse the causes and consequences of inequality and poverty. A brief outline of each chapter can be found below:
The Brilliant Club is a program that sends academics into disadvantaged schools to teach students and help get them into highly selective universities. I taught children at the A-Level and Key Stage 3 levels. The self-designed course I used to teach students can be found below. The program overall doubles the chance of students getting into highly-selective universities (it is not possible to follow individual students performance due to safeguarding).
As the UCU representative for King’s Department of Political Economy, I helped to organise the 2019 Strike against the pension settlements and for better working conditions. In addition, I organised the teaching community against a proposed 33% pay cut for GTAs during the pandemic. We won our fight against the pay cut and the Department’s increased pay award is now the standard across King’s College London.
Every person in this country should have enough money to afford life’s essentials. No-one should be going hungry or cold in this country. No ifs, no buts, and no exceptions.
Ending hunger and poverty in this country is my number one priority in politics. We can do it by raising social security and pension payments. But first, we need to win.
Nothing is more important for our long-term prosperity than getting to Net Zero. Investing to get our carbon emissions down to zero will be the most effective investment in the history of humankind. The benefits will accrue for all coming time and for every person yet to be born.
Over the next decade, we need to invest in transport, buildings, and renewables to get our carbon emissions to zero by 2050.
We will implement a Green New Deal that will do just that and we will make sure we create good jobs across the country while doing so. My focus will be ensuring good jobs are created in this constituency, and particularly in formerly industrial Shepshed. By investing in renewables and home insulation, we will also get your energy bills down and stop sending our money to murderous dictators abroad.
Waiting times at Loughborough’s urgent care centre are at 5 hours and rising. At our nearest A&E, less than half of patients are seen within four hours. Our loved ones lives are being put at risk by public services that are collapsing.
We need to invest more money in our public services and the people delivering them. A decade of austerity will leave public sector workers with a pay cut of £3,000+ next year. Low pay is why we have 50,000 nursing vacancies across this country and, without enough health workers, waiting times are rising. We will fund world-class public services through wealth taxes that could raise over £50bn a year (by reforming capital gains tax, extending national insurance to investment income, and ending non-domiciled status).
We face a housing crisis and a broken planning system that means the wrong houses are built in the wrong places without enough infrastructure. We need more houses. But our broken planning system means that, across this constituency – in Barrow, Shepshed, and Sileby – housing developments are being put down without the infrastructure needed or consideration of the local area. We cannot fix the housing crisis without also getting the support of current homeowners.
If we want more houses to be built, we need to make sure there is a proper plan so that houses are built with enough infrastructure to support them and fit in with the character of the local area. We can build better, more, quality housing that benefits local communities if we plan properly plan and invest in the amenities people need.
Across the constituency, bus services have been privatised, then cut and made prohibitively expensive to maximise (socially damaging) profits. This has led to rising isolation and poverty, especially in our villages.
We need to restore our bus services by bringing them into mutual ownership so that we can maximise social value rather than profits. That would improve people’s quality of life and their bottom line by helping them connect to better job opportunities.
Every worker deserves a secure job, with decent conditions, and good pay. A Labour government will ensure that every worker will get just that by implementing our New Deal for Working People. We are the party of Labour – and we are proud of it.
We will ban zero hours contracts, end fire and rehire, have a right to request flexible working, full employment rights from day one, expand sick pay, enforce the laws we actually have, implement a higher minimum wage, and institute sectoral collective bargaining. That is how we we will improve security, conditions, and pay in this constituency.
Ask me a question, offer your support, and keep up to date with my campaign to be your Labour MP.
