The Chronicle (South Tyneside and Durham)
Candidate ‘honoured’ to contest seat
LABOUR has unveiled its candidate for the newly formed Cramlington and Killingworth seat at the General Election.
Emma Foody will contest the seat for the party, having grown up in the area. The wife of Nottingham North MP and Shadow Minister for Policing Alex Norris, Ms Foody is also the assistant general secretary of the Co-operative
Party and previously served as the deputy police and crime commissioner in Nottingham.
Labour say their candidate has a “track record of public service”, having worked as a 999 call operator and now volunteers as a community first responder with the North East Ambulance Service.
Speaking after her selection, Ms Foody said: “It is the honour of a lifetime to be selected to stand here in Cramlington and Killingworth and the villages. It’s where I grew up, it’s where I got my first job and where I first started campaigning for the change our communities deserve.
“I started my working life as a 999 call taker, helping people across the North East in their hardest moments. Day after day, I saw my colleagues bravely trying to support our communities with one hand tied behind their back with a Government who just would not support them.
“Fourteen years of the Tories have hurt us. Families here are struggling, with rising energy bills, stagnating wages and an NHS at breaking point. We need an MP and a Government that works for all of us, not just those at the top.”
The Cramlington and Killingworth constituency covers the majority of the former Blyth Valley constituency with the exception of Blyth itself, as well as the North Tyneside wards of Camperdown, Killingworth, Weetslade and Valley and part of the Castle ward in Newcastle.
Incumbent Blyth Valley MP Ian Levy will contest the seat for the Conservatives, while the Liberal Democrats have put forward Newcastle city councillor Thom Campion. Calum MacGregor, for Reform UK, and Mathew Wilkinson, for the Social Democratic Party, will also contest the seat.