I’ve been campaigning since I was in my pushchair. My mum was a shop steward and my dad was a Labour Councillor. The values instilled in me from a young age are at the core of all my campaigning.

My Lancashire grandad drove a lorry which was uncertain, precarious work. When I became a barrister, the first in my family to go into the law, I wanted to use my legal training to ensure that all workers had safe and secure work but that is something that can’t be won through the courts. It needs political change.

As the daughter of an American woman disowned for marrying a Mexican man, my mother raised me with the drive to fight racism and inequality. She spent her career working in international development and environmental campaigning.

I met my husband at Labour Party Conference in 2004. Dan is a former BBC radio journalist who runs a research service for Labour MPs and is an on call fire fighter. We moved to Derbyshire when Dan came back from his deployment in Afghanistan as a reservist. We have three children who at 7, 4 and 1 years old are all seasoned Labour Party activists.

The campaigns I ran as the parliamentary candidate for the key East Midlands seat of Erewash brought people together not only from across the constituency but across the country. In the run up to the 2015 election we were speaking to over 1,000 voters a day and I was able to raise over £43,000. In 2017 I secured 21,405 votes which in most other elections would have been enough to win. Even with the difficult losses we saw across the East Midlands in 2019, our strong and consistent campaigning has meant that the current Conservative majority is 6,000 less than seats with similar demographics which had smaller majorities before the 2015 election.

I chair the Society of Labour Lawyers which provides legal advice to the shadow front bench on not only on current legislation but on policy so that when we are in Government we can turn our vision for our Country into reality.

I live in the middle of Derby, and have been campaigning across the city supporting our fantastic local council candidates as well as continuing to run community campaigns on issues close to my heart. To read more about my campaigns past and present please go to my campaigns pages.