3 November 2019
Emma believes "There are many great things about living here, our countryside, our communities, and our history. However, there are ways in which Stafford is under threat. Over development, neglect of our town centre, and changes to our NHS provision at County Hospital all have the potential to harm where we live."
Tony Pearce, Green Party Councillor, said: “Emma works very hard in the local community, and cares deeply about the future of Stafford. She would be an amazing MP for our area.”
I want to be your parliamentary candidate because I believe it is important that we put forward a strong team to represent the party, and for constituents to vote for. I coordinated our winning campaign in Doxey & Castletown where Tony Pearce was elected as our councillor, and I want to use that momentum to put our message out to as many people as possible in a general election. We can also bolster our county election campaign through the clear and targeted work of a dedicated parliamentary candidate.
Since moving to Stafford I have made every effort to get involved in our activities locally, and have a strong understanding of the issues our town faces. I have been knocking on doors, campaigning in, and exploring our target ward of Doxey & Castletown and I think a lot of the issues those residents have resonate with others across the Stafford constituency.
In 2015, when I lived in Leeds I stood in the general election in Leeds North East where I fully participated in all aspects of being a candidate; including being in a promotional video for the party, attending hustings, and answering the many hundreds of emails we received(!). I also was fortunate to retain the deposit in that election. When I looked around me at parliamentary candidates and MPs I didn’t see many people like me, from my background, and far too few women. I decided then, as I have again now to be the change I wanted to see in the world.
I would be honoured if you would re-select me to be your parliamentary candidate for Stafford, to give all our voters a Green to support whenever the election comes. Thank you.
Tom said “I’m standing for parliament because we need leaders who will make the hard decisions now to protect the future of our planet. Please use your vote, vote green, vote for unity over division, vote for a party who is serious about the climate crisis, vote for a party who believes in fairness."
I have prepared this brief statement in a way that will hopefully give you an understanding of who I am and why I would like to stand for the parliamentary candidate for Stone. Firstly, I would like to talk about my life experiences and then talk about my political views that I strongly believe in.
I am a 40-year-old married man living in Stone, I live at home with my wife, Jo, one of my stepdaughters, 2 dogs, 2 cats and 3 chickens. My other stepdaughter lives with her boyfriend and child, who my wife and I adore, even though when he visits he trashes the house as 2 years olds do. Most of my immediate family live in Stone and the surrounding areas. I was brought up in Stone until the age of 7, when my mum and dad moved to Burslem to run the Leopard hotel, my parents met in Stone when they worked at the Crown hotel, my father being the head chef and my mother being the receptionist. We eventually moved back to Stone when I was 16, I carried out my A levels at Fenton 6 form college then at the age of 18 I joined the Royal Navy as an Aircraft Engineering Artificer apprentice. I served 8 years in the force which I am most proud of, even though my time involved in the unjust 2003 gulf war tainted my time in the service.
After my time in the Navy I worked as an avionic engineer, working in France, Norway and Scotland. I then decided to move back to Stone due to family reasons, I was hoping to donate one of my kidneys to my father, unfortunately this did not happen. I decided to change industry and became a team leader for day services where we cared for clients with brain acquired injuries. This was a very worthwhile period of my life, but eventually left this line of work due to the lack of support for care workers and the fact that we couldn’t care for the clients to the standard I would want to provide.
I then got a job in Stone at Bibby Scientific as service team leader, I was then made redundant and I currently work at Renishaw which is located in Stone.
As you can see, Stone and the surrounding area has always been in my life, it is an area where I have all the generations of my family, My mother, aunt and uncle are all entering the twilight years and I am concerned of elderly care and the social services for the aging generation in the area, I have my grandson and is concerned on the ever increasing demand on the schools with increasing house building and the lack of funding for the current local schools. I am concerned of job opportunities for my step daughters, not just jobs, but fulfilling career paths that they can be proud of. My cousin and friends work in the local police force and it is clear to see the stress they are all under from the cuts to their funding and their inability to provide the community support they wish to give.
My political views have changed as I have got older, my parents were conservative voters and I was brought up as a conservative voter (as I’m typing this I am holding my head in shame). I had come to realise that our lives should not be how rich we should be, or what job title one has, or ‘I’m alright jack’. Our lives should be one of community, one of equal rights, understanding and one of inclusion and one that shows compassion and empathy to all. I think my change came more apparent when I turned vegan 8 years ago, when you put compassion and empathy to all living beings at the top of your life choices you come to see what damage we are doing to our world, this then led me to look at the environment we live in. At first, it was trying to change the impact to the environment by changing my personal choices, turning lights off, using less water, walking to work, but it is quite clear that to make meaningful change to climate change, we need a political change, we need to think of our planet as a finite resource, a political and economic system which is not measured on continual growth but how we can maintain it.
When looking at the last elections it was clear to me that the only party that can offer real change was the Green Party. It would be a great privilege to stand for the Green Party, to try and spread the green party message to the mainstream. Climate change is not a political mantra, it is fact and that we need to push the climate agenda to the top of the pile as the effects of climate change will be more disastrous than anything the world has experienced.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity for nomination as the parliamentary candidate for the green party.
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