As the phrase goes, I was born in London, but I was made on Merseyside. My history spans many generations of Liverpudlians. My great grandfather from Everton, the seventh son of a seventh son, who fooled the drafting sergeant and joined up at 14 to fight alongside his six brothers with the Liverpool Pals in the first world war and won the military medal for gallantry. There is a memorial to him and his section in a tiny village near the Somme. When he and only one of his brothers returned home to Liverpool from the trenches he worked on the docks and started his own hugely successful Market Garden Company. My Grandad from Toxteth whose family’s construction business provided jobs and helped rebuild the city after the second world war. My great uncle who played with the Merseybeat group Them Grimbels in the 1960s touring with The Beatles in the UK and Hamburg. My own father who lived and worked in Gateacre as a lay preacher and historian. I was the first to be born ‘down South’ but grew up with an affinity to the city spending time here with my family wherever we could. I became and still am a massive red, taking the 4.30am coach from Victoria every fortnight to stand on the Kop aged just 14. Liverpool is my second home.
I was raised by my Mum and Grandparents, we lived together in a flat in London, mum worked full time to support me, my relationship with Nana and Grandad was everything. Grandad was an entrepreneur and turned a failing company into a multi-million pound business. He was a staunch Conservative and loved to impart his political ideas and coach my political interest. He taught me that opportunity will always present itself to you even when you are not looking for it, but what matters is taking that opportunity and passing it on to others, a value that he lived by, and I have tried to emulate. When I was 14 years old my Grandparents died in a car accident, and although a high achieving pupil, I dropped out of school with just 3 GCSEs. I joined the Army in my twenties and began to rebuild my life. These experiences mean I am never daunted by adversity, if challenges present themselves, I will push my way to the front line because I know I am strong, I know I am resilient and I know I will be able to lead those around me who need my help.
That sense of duty and desire to help others is why I want to become an MP. I believe the bedrock of society are the community leaders who instinctively react to what the people who live on their street need. I have open cafes in local parks meaning there are facilities for families and a community hub. I have relocated polling stations so that schools were no longer closed, parents inconvenienced, and education interrupted. I am one of those community champions, I am a self-starter. When the pandemic meant that my children could not go to school I worked with friends across the country to build the Invicta Academy. I built a platform for Surrey that delivered 6000 live online learning opportunities to children stuck at home. We built the Academy and through the turmoil of lockdowns we recorded over 300,000 attendances to our lessons. As an MP education is an area I would be focused on, Invicta Academy highlighted how children with SEN positively reacted to online learning, adaptation of learning environments for SEN pupils should be explored. It is a subject close to my heart as I have a son with Dyspraxia and work with the Dyspraxia Foundation. Children and adults with neurodiverse needs have so much to offer and often have unique skill sets. I would push for this to be recognised and for education and employment strategies to be inclusive of this, that is taking opportunity and passing it on.
That is why I wanted to stand here because I believe that this amazing City deserves better; that the socialist tendencies of the city are habitual and historic. They are rooted in old allegiances that no longer serve the city well. They are not based on facts, facts like authorities run by Labour don’t work. I am not in Liverpool because I believe the Conservative Party can overturn a 30k majority. I am here asking voters to be curious, to ask questions, questions like what has having a Labour MP done for my city? Is my city a better place after 74 years of Labour representation in Liverpool Walton? Take a step back and look at the mess Labour leave whenever they are given the opportunity to represent and look at what the Conservatives have achieved for the city despite the difficulties the country has been through. £25m of funding for Liverpool Freeport, almost all schools in Liverpool Walton with an Outstanding or Good Ofsted rating, 724 new police officers on the streets of Merseyside since 2019, economic inactivity falling in the City and these results are replicated across the country.
Our country has been through a shock not seen since the second world war. It is human nature to think changing the status quo is the solution after living through such punitive times, that is why we ended up with the disastrous Labour government of the post war period who kept us on rations while the Germans rebuilt. We mustn’t let that happen again. So I ask you to be curious, give yourself the opportunity to step outside old outdated tropes and really ask what has the Labour Party really done for my city?
