My family lived below the poverty line after we arrived in the UK from Bangladesh when I was a small child. We knew what it meant to struggle, and to feel bewildered by the system. I am standing to serve as Labour MP for Didcot & Wantage because I want to make life fairer and easier for all, and to implement far better cohesion, connectivity and devolution between an active, ‘smarter’ national government, and empowered, responsible leaders, councils and businesses locally.
In early 2020, nearly ten years into a disastrous Tory government (which started as a coalition with the Lib Dems), all our lives were sent into a downward spiral with the arrival of the pandemic. Then the cost of living crisis turned household finances upside down. There was a perception that beautiful, leafy Oxfordshire could not be home to thousands of people who worried about the choice between eating or heating their homes, or finding a dentist or GP without endless waits, but that could not be less true.
Squeezed household incomes meant more people were increasingly using food banks, and charity shops such as Changing Lives in Wantage and Didcot. Increasingly, Tory government decisions and measures were hindering, not helping, the lives of ordinary people. I started to look for quick, bottom-up ways I could help as a resident and councillor.
In the past I had saved King Alfred Drive Community Centre (KADCC) from closure, having realised it could be used in better ways for the benefit of the community as a whole, and the disadvantaged in particular. KADCC had been rapidly upgraded so that it could host community and charity groups - from art appreciation and language classes to martial arts and yoga.
Then, during the pandemic, KADCC became a much-needed base where food parcels were packed with essentials and delivered to needy households. In late 2021, as Covid began to die down, but when many were still struggling badly, Jane Ord and I saw that fresh, hot meals were required, and Didcot Community Kitchen was born. The Community Kitchen started to open every Friday from midday to 2pm, and is still going strong today. Everyone who turns up is given a warm welcome, can meet new and old friends, and is served a hot lunch and pudding. My father worked in Indian restaurants and taught me how to cook, so I have been a regular chef at the Community Kitchen, making my dad’s famous curries, with 50 to 60 people fed each week by volunteers.
I wish this Community Kitchen were not needed any more, but the cost of living crisis is still with us, so we must carry on. But there is hope on the horizon with a Labour government, though change will take time as there is a big mess to clear up. As your MP, I would press a Labour government from within to try even harder to deliver the good things of our great society to each and every household, but especially to those in greatest need. Life-enhancing organisations like the Community Kitchen should continue and expand into all the towns in our area, as they are great meeting and support points. But the key aspects of our lives should be improved by better national and decentralised local government structures so that we can all afford to rent or buy homes reasonably, and green heat them at low cost; to feed our families healthily and well; to travel sustainably; and to get the best NHS medical and dental treatment wherever we need it, whether locally or at specialist centres.
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