Friends of LabourList are vital in supporting our work. Starting this month, we are hoping to celebrate our Friends and learn a little more about them. This month, we spoke to Ruth Cadbury MP, Member of Parliament for Brentford and Isleworth and the chair of the Transport Committee in the House of Commons.
Who is your Labour hero?
Barbara Castle: A strong woman in what was then an almost totally male world, who was prepared to be unpopular to deliver what she felt was right – in particular facing down the car lobby to institute measures that have saved countless lives such as seat belts, breathalyser tests and speed limits. And of course, for overseeing/driving the Equal Pay Act. If the men in the Labour party had listened to her about reforming the trade union movement with ‘In Place of Strife’ we might just have avoided the winter of discontent and the horrors of Thatcherism.
When and why did you join the Labour Party?
Although my upbringing was rooted in equality and social justice, I didn’t grow up with party loyalty. So, it was in my first year at Salford University, when local MP Stan Orme (then Social Security Minister) came to speak, about income inequality in families with disabled children. He showed how Labour in Government had the power to address this.
Tell us about your Labour journey.
As an elected Student union officer in 1981 I was pitched onto national student politics as Salford was at the top of Tory PM Margaret Thatcher’s University cuts; a 44% funding cut and 30% reduction in student numbers over 3 years.
If you could say one thing to the Prime Minister, what would it be?
Help TfL kickstart the building of the new West London Orbital overground rail route – we need a new train route!
Why is LabourList important?
It’s the one place we can find accurate and honest journalism about what’s going on inside our great party
Why did you become a Friend of LabourList?
As above, because to stay real it needs independent funding more than commercial sponsorship, and because on an MP’s salary, I can afford it.
Would you like to be a future Friend of the Month? Learn a little more about our community, and what becoming a Friend can offer you, here.
More from LabourList
‘Why risk the ‘Burnham bounce’ on the oil and gas industry?’
Stella Tsantekidou column: ‘If I were a tech bro, I would be backing Andy’
‘Everyone or no one: what Burnham must understand about minority Britain’