PPC Profile: Stuart King

Full Name: Stuart King

Age: 38

From: Born in London, 1970

PPC for: Putney (Tory majority 1,776)

Website: www.stuartking.net

Selection Result:
June 2007: I don’t recall the exact numbers, but it was with over 70% of the vote in the first round. I was a local candidate, a former councillor and invested a lot of time calling round on members. It paid dividends.

Member of the Labour Party since: 1987.

CV:
You can read an extended biography here. But in brief, after leaving Nottingham University I worked briefly for the Association of County Councils. For the past twelve years I have worked in the private sector: first for a major business services company and now for a publishing, events and training company.

I’ve been a local councillor, leading the Labour opposition in one of the most challenging political environments: Wandsworth. I’m a trade unionist, having served on both the Unite national political committee and the London Labour Party Board, and strongly believe in the Trade Union-Labour link.

I was inspired to go into politics because: I am tribally Labour, coming from a London working class Labour family and background. Specifically I was inspired to join Labour after the 1987 election, a defeat that convinced me I had to join in and not watch from the sidelines.

The efforts of Neil Kinnock and others to change the party so that it began, once more, saying to people like me – from ordinary backgrounds who wanted to get on – that Labour was the party for us, mattered. We urgently need to rebuild the coalition that brought us to power in 1997 by showing we are still the party of both social justice and aspiration. Not simply because it’s the only way we’ll win a fourth term, but because that’s what our party should stand for: fairness, greater opportunity, and the offer of a helping hand to those who want help to get on as well as those struggling to get by.

My motivation to stand for Parliament in Putney was because I am local, offer a different perspective to the public sector ranks that dominate the party; I’m clear about the things I want to improve locally and nationally, and feel I can do a good job representing it in Parliament.

My main policy interests are:
Housing and social mobility.

Three things I think should be in the next Labour manifesto are:
1 – Ensure affordable housing becomes a significantly greater priority for our government, but to avoid a return to the mistaken policies of massive housing estates that entrench deprivation. We need to be far more radical and innovative, mixing and integrating communities: and that includes diversifying the wealthiest areas as well as the most deprived. In London particularly, the government need to recognise that affordable housing for rent is the most urgent priority – and that may mean forcing councils like Wandsworth to build more homes for rent.

2 – Improving educational opportunity for our brightest kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. We’ve made great progress with primary schools but many of our secondary schools are still not nearly as good as they should be. I would like to see a commitment to a time-specific date for equalising spending between state and public schools, as well as the rigorous insistence that in return for charitable status public schools take the most academically gifted pupils regardless of their background (so called “blind selection”).

3. Fairer recognition in the tax and benefit system of the cost of living. For years, governments have ignored that while London incomes and house values are far higher than the national average, so too are our living costs. The proposed abolition of childcare vouchers will disproportionately hurt London because childcare costs are so much higher here. You can live in a band G or H home in London and not be well-to-do. Unemployment benefits are the same regardless of the cost of living. The revaluation of business rates disproportionately hits London: the engine of our economy. We should look more favourably on regional tax bands.

I think people should vote for me because:
I have an eleven-year track record of working extremely hard for residents locally – first as a councillor and more recently as parliamentary candidate. I think I’ve shown that well-run and high profile local campaigns on issues people in my constituency feel strongly about can make a difference.

I understand the things that make Putney a great place to live, and while Putney has done extremely well from a Labour Government – unemployment locally, right now at the depths of recession, is still 30% lower than the level we inherited from the Tories – I know that daily life for many can be a struggle. I want to be a voice that stands up for local people in parliament and recognises that on some occasions the answer to a problem lies in less rather than more state intervention.

AOB:
As well as being an employee, a parliamentary candidate and a frustrated QPR fan, I am also a husband to Natalie, who is a teacher. Find out more about me at www.stuartking.net.