Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00How does it feel to be Northampton North's new MP?
00:02Hi Katie, it feels incredible, it feels incredible. Northampton has resoundingly voted for change,
00:08winning in both Northampton North, Northampton South, we've just heard the result come in in
00:12Kettering, I believe we've also won in Wellingborough and Corby as well, so it's a
00:17very good night from my party, but the clear thing is that the work starts here.
00:22And to get a majority of over 9,000,
00:25how does that feel after six weeks of really hard campaign work for you?
00:28The reality Katie is that we've been campaigning for, I've been the candidate for almost two years
00:34now and we've been going out on a very regular basis at least every week and talking to people
00:38continuously about the change that they want to see and I think that, you know, that I'm sure
00:44has contributed to us being able to reflect back to people this kind of change that they're talking
00:49about and that has helped to, you know, get the results that we've seen tonight.
00:55And how did you feel earlier on this morning finding out that Labour had won
00:59the general election all together, obviously before finding out that you'd won your seat,
01:02how did that feel for you?
01:03I mean it's a momentous night for the Labour party but I'm, as I said a few moments ago,
01:09I'm under absolutely no illusions whatsoever about the scale of the change that we need and
01:14the fact that people want work to begin immediately and it will. I might have a few
01:19hours sleep first but beyond that it will.
01:22So what are your main priorities moving forward when the work does begin, what will you start with?
01:26So the three main things that people have been talking to us about and that we've been talking
01:30to people about as a result, first of all it's about the cost of living, so the cost of the
01:34weekly shop, energy bills, rents and mortgages, you know, Labour's a plan as Rachel Weaves and
01:40Keir Starmer have been talking about, you know, for really some time now, we've got to get the
01:43cost of living down. That applies to businesses as much as it does to families. The second thing
01:49is about public services, so the two main ones being the health service and we could, I could
01:54talk to you for an hour, I won't because it's half six in the morning, but an hour about the scale of
01:58the change that we need to see in the health service. We need to get the NHS back up to where
02:02it was but with reform as well to really modernise it and I think also, I mean crime and policing,
02:07a big part of that too. So at the moment unfortunately 90% of crimes in this country
02:12are going unsolved, businesses have had huge issues with retail crime and that leads me to
02:16the third issue which is the town centre. Yeah, so people, no matter where we are in town, people
02:22talk to us about the state of the town centre, so part of that is about litter and potholes,
02:27and this stuff that some people will say is low level but actually I don't, I don't say that at
02:32all. This, this is the stuff that really affects people's lives and the other part of that is about
02:37our local small businesses. You know, we need to bring jobs and investment to Northampton, we need
02:42to help our own independent businesses here too, stamp out late payments, reform business rates,
02:48we've seen too many empty shops, all of those things will contribute to a reviving of our
02:54town centre, reviving of our local economy, that's what people tell me they want to see.
02:58Yeah, brilliant, and we've seen here you got quite emotional obviously when the result came in and
03:02sharing moments there with Mike Reader, the new MP for Northampton South, so,
03:06and also your family here as well, so yeah, what was that moment like to share that with
03:10your loved ones and people that you care about? Yeah, I mean we're all working very hard, you know,
03:16other candidates were working very hard as well, it's a, it's a sort of high pressure
03:23environment I suppose, and you know, when you're, when you're working like that as part of a big
03:29team all driving towards the same thing, my family are obviously, you know, part of the, part of that
03:34team and driving towards the, the, being able to deliver the change that people want to see, it's,
03:38it's emotional, and we've had no sleep, so it's a kind of, you know, I, I regret sort of slightly
03:44hesitating in my speech as I did, but sometimes, you know, emotion gets the better of you in these
03:49circumstances. And after a few hours of sleep, how are you planning to celebrate the win?
03:53Well, the most important thing from my point of view is saying thank you to all the fantastic
03:58volunteers, as I said a few moments ago, we've been out in all weathers for months and months
04:02and months and months and months and, you know, wins like this come from that hard work, so I'm
04:08going to be buying a few gifts, no doubt, and probably buying a few drinks as well for the team.
04:14And then finally, if you could summarise how you're feeling in one word, I know it's probably
04:17quite a difficult task, but how would you summarise that now? Wow, good question, incredible.
04:24Thank you so much Lucy, congratulations. Pleasure, thanks very much.