Electors will have the choice of five candidates when they take to the polls on Thursday, 4th July.
The deadline for the nomination of candidates for the General Election has now passed and the following five candidates have been confirmed as standing in the Tatton constituency:
- Nigel Hennerley – Green Party
- Ryan Jude – Labour Party
- Esther McVey – Conservative and Unionist Party
- Oliver George Speakman - Reform UK
- Jonathan Smith – Liberal Democrats
I have contacted all five candidates and will be publishing articles for those who respond in the order in which they do so.
Esther McVey has been selected to stand as the candidate for the Conservative and Unionist Party in next month's General Election.
Esther, 56, was born in Liverpool and trained as a lawyer. After graduating in law, she worked for a decade in the media as a producer and presenter for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky before setting up a business providing business support and office space for start up businesses and "established the biggest business women's network in the north west".
Ms McVey was also Chair of the British Transport Police Authority and founded the charity If Chloe Can, which provides school pupils with careers advice and access to role models.
Esther said "I believe passionately in extending opportunity for all and, that it's not about where you come from in life, but where you are going to that matters. I began my life in care, as a Barnardo's child, and from the support and kindness of others and a good education, ended up in government and in Cabinet."
Esther lives in the Tatton constituency and have done since 2017. She is married to Philip Davies and has two stepchildren.
What are your promises/priorities for Tatton?
- To continue to fight against HS2. Labour and Andy Burnham want to reintroduce it, putting all our years of hard work at risk. The money saved from HS2 will be spent on local transport infrastructure, resurfacing roads, filling potholes, and repairing pavements. I want to see that money now spent wisely in Tatton and will lobby for that to happen.
- Ensure we keep our world class education system and not fall down the international league tables which is what's happening in Labour run Wales, and with the VAT the Labour Party plan to put on private schools and the havoc that would inflict on all schools including SEN ones, I want to be a strong voice against that.
- Support our local businesses - with inflation down to 2%, the U.K. moving up the global rankings, now 4th in the world for exports, and the U.K. having just over taken France for manufacturing - I want to continue supporting local and British businesses.
- Support our local farmers. I led the debate in the House of Commons on food security and farming and promoting British food.
- I want to protect our towns and villages from over-development. If re-elected I will keep holding councils to account over local planning issues. I regularly am contacted by constituents worried about planning applications, lack of planning enforcement or plans being passed without doctors, schools or road infrastructure to support them. It is vital that local residents' views should be listened to.
- See the completion of the new medial centre in Knutsford after all the hard work already done with the local GPs, the ICB and Cheshire East Council.
- Continue supporting our communities to get better broadband particularly in our rural villages.
- See Handforth Station completed next year. Having worked with Friends of Handforth Station and Handforth Parish Council, I lobbied government and secured funding for the much needed lift at Handforth station.
- I will continue to support local communities. I want to keep working with groups and residents as I believe in people power. We saw it very recently when the Labour-led Cheshire East Council wanted to close Knutsford Leisure Centre. I battled alongside local councillors and residents and the vital community asset was saved. I want to keep holding the councils to account and ensure no decisions are made that make no sense, are ill-conceived and negatively impact residents.
Why have you decided to stand as the Conservative and Unionist Party candidate again for Tatton?
Tatton is an amazing constituency with wonderful communities and I want to ensure it remains that way. Since becoming the MP I'm 2017 I have helped over 52,000 constituents and replied to over 1 million emails and I want to continue helping local residents in this way.
Locally I've campaigned with residents to stop HS2 which would have destroyed many of our villages in Tatton and large swathes of our countryside, and now all that hard work, over many years, is at risk should Labour get elected.
I've championed the green belt and green spaces all now a risk as Labour seeks to redesignate Green Belt to Grey Belt and I have already done work to protect our peatbogs.
In Westminster I've highlighted local issues and affected change from farming, to HS2. I've managed to get new local transport links like the new 'through-about' the first in the U.K. on M6 to ease congestion, have petitioned on behalf of Park Home owners, of which we have many in Tatton, and won a reduction in their pitch fees, recently lobbied to get extra money from government to improve the 130 bus service (vital for residents of Wilmslow Alderley Edge and Handforth, particularly when they need to visit a relative in hospital. The service will now also run on Sundays) and I have even raised the excellent work done by Wilmslow's football academy and its girls team on the floor of the House too.
I've also lobbied ministers for extra investment for our area, including new money for our local councils for pothole repairs and road resurfacing, helped get tens of thousands of pounds ploughed into local sports facilities including Styal Sports Club and improvements at grass root clubs, as well as securing £560,000 funding for the major refurbishment of the Market Hall in Knutsford.
I supported our local schools get extra money per pupil, I also secured government money for extensions and repairs to schools too.
Very recently I also wrote supporting the upcoming bid to a Community Infrastructure fund for Handforth Town Council to buy the Youth Club centre.
Articles featuring the other candidates standing in the General Election on July 4th will be tagged below 'General Election 2024'.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
1 million divided by 7 years = 142,850
142,850 divided by 52 weeks = 2,747
2,747 divided by 7 days = 392 per day, every day
All approximates
I suspect the vast majority would be a standard copy and paste reply.
I notice she hasn't claimed to read and reply to every one.
Let's hope she has even more time on her hands from now on.
She’s clearly not very good with numbers - though her partner seems to be able to weigh up the odds pretty accurately.
Quite where she got the idea I had supported something so daft I don't know. And still don't as she did not reply to MY email asking her!
I was never very impressed by Esther. I'm even less so now.
Those e-mail figures would include 3 questions from me. She replied to one of them but, like most politicians, she did not answer did not answer my question.