Croydon North selection – the shortlist

LabourList understands that the following candidates have been shortlisted by the Labour Party for the Croydon North by-election following the sad passing of Malcolm Wicks:

Simon Burgess knows the Croydon area well having grown up and worked in the area. He left school at 16 and was his grandmothers’ carer whilst working for a haulage company in Croydon. Having been a volunteer for people with disabilities since he was at school he left transport to work in the NHS with adults with learning disabilities. At 29 he moved to study at Sussex University becoming a Labour & Co-op councillor during his studies. Simon went on to be City Council Leader and then the GMB backed Brighton Kemptown candidate in 2010. He was elected onto the NPF in 1998 and has been one of its Vice-Chairs since 2006. In the Labour leadership contest Simon worked on the Ed Balls Campaign running his campaign office. He currently works at a school for deaf students.

Faz Hakim worked as adviser on politics and diversity to Tony Blair (1997-2000), and now works in Financial Services publishing. Previously Faz worked as Vice-President, head of media for EMEA at JP Morgan investment bank and as Principal Adviser to Trevor Philips for 5 years. She has been a board member of both the Runnymede Trust for 10 years,the Citizenship Foundation, and co-author of the book ‘Women, Islam and Western Liberalism’. Hakim also served on tthe Government’s taskforce on preventing extremism. In the run up to the 1997 election she was head of the Labour Party’s Key Campaigners taskforce.

Steve Reed won back Lambeth council against the odds in 2006 then transformed the council into one of Labour’s flagship local authorities. His vision for cooperative councils, backed by Ed Miliband, has become the biggest movement nationally in Labour-led local government. Despite Tory funding cuts Steve’s council has opened a new library and stopped Croydon’s Tories closing another on the borough’s borders, is building three new leisure centres, opened six new schools, increased pay for the lowest-paid as a Living Wage council, and is upgrading 15,000 substandard council homes. Steve also leads the country’s biggest regeneration project based around Battersea Power Station, creating 32,000 new jobs prioritised for local unemployed people.

Val Shawcross was Ken Livingstone’s Deputy London Mayoral candidate in 2012, and has served as Lambeth and Southwark’s GLA member for 12 years. She is currently the Labour London Assembly Spokesperson for Transport and Chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee. She also currently serves on the Assembly Budget Scrutiny Committee. Before that, Val was a member of Croydon Council from 1994-2000 and served as leader of council, as well as Chair of Education. Shawcross is a former Labour Party national women’s office and in 2002 she was awarded a CBE for her services to local government.

Louisa Woodley was first elected to represent Croydon’s Rylands ward in 1998. She became vice-chair of the education committee in 1999 and cabinet member for education, youth and lifelong learning in February 2000. She has been the party’s spokesperson on children’s services, sport and culture since 2006, and was Labour’s GLA candidate for Croydon and Sutton in 2012. Woodley is a French and Spanish teacher at a school in Lambeth.

The selection meeting will take place on November 3rd – with the election expected to be on November 29th.