Labour’s “community champion”: Interview with the Chesham and Amersham candidate

Grab your pencils, it’s voting time again – if you live in Chesham and Amersham. After Labour’s defeat in Hartlepool last month, the party now faces another by-election. The death of former MP Dame Cheryl Gillan means this historically safe seat for the Tories is up for grabs. “The Labour Party has a famous link to Chesham and Amersham; the father of the NHS, Nye Bevan, lived at Asheridge Farm just outside Chesham from 1954 until he passed away in 1960,” Keir Starmer recently wrote, explaining why residents should back local Labour candidate Natasa Pantelic. “Just like Nye’s transformative vision for the country through an NHS, under my leadership Labour is offering a people a chance for change.”

Some suggested a lack of clear policies let Labour down last month. Does this stand in the way of Labour in Chesham and Amersham? I ask Pantelic whether the people she speaks to every day in her campaign know what Labour stands for. “Yes,” is the emphatic response. “I have got a clear plan around what I want to do around public services, around HS2, around getting better more affordable housing – bringing all my experience of working in local government, teaching and working in parliament to really make a difference to local people.” And she stresses throughout our interview that this is very much a locally driven election.

Policies should begin at the local level, whether in relation to HS2, active travel, access to healthcare, fixing potholes and footpaths, preventing the loss of natural habitats or protecting the area’s nine chalk streams, building affordable homes or fixing social care, she tells me. Offering an example, she says: “The environment is the biggest issue of our time. We’ve got to address climate change and I feel that you need to start, though, at that local level.” Her campaign is tapping into a drive for more locally led policies, she explains as she tells me residents feel taken for granted: “Promises are being made and nothing is being delivered”.

Pantelic describes how a key motivator for her is being a “local community champion”. She says that this has been a driver for her throughout her career as a councillor and teacher. It is this same passion spurring her on for the next challenge: standing for parliament. “I’ve just got this fire in my belly to kind of get in there and just get these things sorted out – that’s where I come from.” And, as a former teacher, it is unsurprising that one of the burning issues her mind is set on is education.

“I grew up under the last Labour government; I was given loads of opportunities to learn to get out and do things in my local neighbourhood, and I was the first in my family to go to university.” It was during her stint at university that she did a bit of work experience for Andrew Smith, then MP for Oxford East and a former cabinet minister. This is the point at which she really got involved with the “day-to-day, bread and butter helping people in the local community”, she explains. She was inspired by the last Labour government’s focus on education, citing the Every Child Matters agenda, investment in school buildings, giving young people the chance to learn outside of school. But during her time as a teacher, she tells me, she became frustrated with the system: “Part of my motivation for coming into parliament and wanting to be a member of parliament is changing the education system for young people.”

Starmer comes up on the doorstep, the candidate says, and the response is a good one. “They really, really like him as the leader of the party,” she explains. “On the doorstep, when people mention him it’s only ever positive.” She says the residents like the way he is challenging the government and holding it to account. “People are now looking very much at the future under Keir Starmer’s new leadership,” Pantelic tells me. “What I’ve tried to show in Chesham and Amersham, and I know Kim is doing up in Batley and Spen, is to show that Labour is listening, and that we do want to be there for local communities and really fight for what they want.” And this is where the national meets the local. “We don’t leave anyone behind in our local communities,” she adds. “We want to move forward together.”

The Tories have held the Chesham and Amersham constituency since 1974 and are defending a majority of 16,223. As a spokesperson for the Labour leadership said last week: “Chesham and Amersham has been a Conservative seat for as long as it has existed. We have a fantastic candidate, but it’s obviously a very difficult contest for the Labour Party.” The Tories did see some negative results across the South of England in the recent local elections, dubbed its ‘Blue Wall’ losses, and this local champion seems determined to see that trend continue.