Featured Candidate: Natalie Bennett
5 May 2015
In the run up to the General Election we will be giving you the opportunity to get to know some of our candidates. Our key candidates and spokespeople can be found here.
This year we will be standing in over 90% of seats in England and Wales.
Our featured candidate for Holborn and St Pancras: Natalie Bennett
Natalie Bennett was elected the leader of The Green Party of England and Wales on September 3, 2012.
Born in Sydney, Australia, she has lived in London since 1999.
She started her career as a journalist in rural New South Wales and has worked for the Bangkok Post, the Telegraph, the Independent, The Times and, most recently, as editor of Guardian Weekly.
She spent two years in Bangkok working with the National Commission on Women's Affairs, on its report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. She also worked as a consultant with the International Labour Organization (ILO) on child labour issues and World Health Organization (WHO) on women's health.
Living in Somers Town, central London, she is a local community campaigner and is an active member of the People's Supermarket Co-operative.
Why are you standing for the Green Party in Holborn and St Pancras?
I'm standing in Holborn and St Pancras because it's the fantastic part of London that I'm proud to call home. The area is home to people from all over the world – and I really value living in a multicultural community. And with Frank Dobson standing down after more than three decades as MP, and Greens clearly the second party in the constituency, there's a chance here I can be elected as London's first Green MP. There's a mountain to climb, undoubtedly, but I wanted to give my neighbours, my friends, my community, the chance to make me their MP – and I'm getting a great reaction from them.
What are your three top priorities if elected?
It's clear that we need to make bold changes to fix the serious problems facing this country. If I could do three things immediately I would:
1) Bring in a bill against tax dodging in the first 100 days of the parliament to start to ensure that the richest individuals and biggest companies pay their fair share – which will then start bringing in the money we need to start restoring public services slashed away under this government's vicious austerity programme.
2) Focus on the most vulnerable who've been left in often desperate circumstances by this government's cuts to benefits and vicious benefit sanctions – so restore the Independent Living Fund, increase carers' allowance by 50%, restore the levels of the Personal Independence Payment, then move on to help for single parents and public sector workers. And I'd start the process of immediately making the minimum wage a living wage, so workers wouldn't be living in the often desperate poverty they are now.
3) Institute a sensible energy policy, starting with insulating homes in the poorest areas of the country, with 9 million homes to be treated by the end of the parliament. This would cut household bills, help end fuel poverty, create 100,000 jobs, and cut carbon emissions.
What made you want to get involved in politics?
As a journalist I'd for decades thought that at some time I'd reach an end point of covering the news, with its famines, its human-made disasters and democratic failures, and instead want to change the news. I'd have expected that I'd get involved with campaigning or perhaps the United Nations, but when I got to that point I decided that it was in local councils, in Westminster and in Brussels that decisions were made, so I wanted to get involved in politics instead.
What's your favourite thing about your constituency?
I love Holborn and St Pancras for its diversity and its independent-mindedness. It's a wonderful cross-section of British society, rich and poor, people from every corner of the globe. They still live beside each other, although soaring house prices and rents, the government's benefits cap and the sale of council housing, is a huge threat to that. It's also an accepting place, where people are free to live as they wish to and there's a collective consciousness of the importance of preserving that. I'm a very proud resident and would be honoured to represent Holborn and St Pancras in Parliament.
Who is your political hero?
A collective answer: the many women of history who've fought against huge social disapproval and resistance to campaign for political change – the Leveller women in the Civil War, the suffragettes, the many whose names we'll never know but whose efforts made a difference.
Like Natalie on Facebook, follow her on twitter or read her blog to learn more