News In The Hebden Bridge List

Calder Valley Candidate On BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show

Calder Valley’s Labour Parliamentary Candidate, Steph Booth told millions of BBC Radio 2 listeners she was standing for Parliament because she did not want to see the drawbridge pulled up on supporting some of the most vulnerable people in Britain.

Speaking in a live studio debate with two other over 50 year old parliamentary candidates from the Lib Dem and Conservative parties on why age and experience mattered, she said her upbringing and experiences as a mother and frontline worker with vulnerable children had taught her vital services should not be put at risk.

“Services like Sure Start, child tax credits and the child trust fund are important to help create a level playing field where people have opportunities to make a good life for themselves,” she said. “Any future Government will have to make tough choices on spending but we must make sure the most vulnerable are not abandoned.”

The presenter of the debate, Jeremy Vine, asked all three candidates what they could bring to Parliament that a “20-something professional politician” couldn’t? Responding, Steph said: “Once you reach your 50s and you’ve had children and some life experience I think you know how to emphasise with people a lot more and how to make concessions and compromise in order to get things done.”

But when the former Newsnight presenter asked Steph if this meant older people were “more practical and less idealistic”, she argued the opposite.

“I think the assumption that because you’re older you’re not idealistic is wrong,” she said. “I’m always willing to give something a go because you have to dream the dream until you draw your last breath.”

The debate took in, among other things, what experiences had defined their politics and their views on the expenses scandal and spending cuts.

On a day when a senior adviser to the Conservatives, Sir Alan Budd, became the latest economist to warn that Tory plans to make big spending cuts immediately would plunge the country back into recession, Steph reiterated her view that the Government must support the economy through to recovery first.

Pressed by Jeremy Vine if Sure Start might be vulnerable to cuts, she answered, “It wouldn’t be vulnerable under a Labour Government. We have a firm commitment to safeguard vital frontline services.”

Listen To The Jeremy Vine Debate On BBC iPlayer