I’m no outsider on this turf
LABOUR’S Wakefield by-election candidate has hit back at Tory attempts to paint him as an outsider – as he has been campaigning in the area for two decades.
Simon Lightwood worked for previous Labour MP Mary Creagh, before the seat turned blue in 2019. The Conservative candidate Nadeem Ahmed repeatedly refers to himself as “a real local candidate”.
But on the campaign trail with the Daily Mirror, Mr Lightwood, 41, added that he had lived in the constituency for a decade. He added: “I’ve met hundreds of people with various sorts of problems as a caseworker in Wakefield.
“Trust me I know the issues people are facing.”
He knows poverty – his family of seven had to move in with his grandmother in a two-bedroom house.
But he quipped: “I would not have minded if my Nana didn’t snore so much.”