Why I’m Standing

I never thought I’d get involved in politics. I mean, working-class people don’t. We’re expected to accept decisions made somewhere else, by people who don’t use the services they’re cutting, don’t wait for the bus that never comes, don’t lie awake worrying about rent, heating bills or getting a GP appointment…

“Politician” never featured in career discussions at my comprehensive – and certainly not for a council-estate girl who had grown up on benefits and had free school meals. Someone who was almost taken into care when she was 11.

Which is exactly why I’m standing. To speak up for those who look at Holyrood and see a world far away from theirs.

So I’ll lay my CV out now: I don’t work for a politician or a party. I don’t have a politics degree.

What I do have is lived experience of how political decisions land and who they land on hardest.

I know what it’s like to live in poverty, when the safety net meant to catch you when you fall is full of holes.

That’s not a weakness. It’s a qualification.

And I’ve already shown its power.

I’ve spent years campaigning on women’s health. That work helped change how menopause is understood and fed directly into the introduction of menopause protections in the workplace. It showed me that when lived experience is taken seriously, policy gets better.

I’ve been a councillor, making decisions for all the community – and seeing how different they become when the people affected are actually in the room.

I’ve worked in elite spaces too, breaking into newsrooms that weren’t built for people like me and learning how power operates there as well. I didn’t leave my background at the door. I brought it with me.

I’m standing because politics should feel closer than it does. Because our political system shouldn’t feel like a closed world filled with people who were always meant to be there – and who have always been there. Working-class people don’t just deserve representation; our voices improve decision-making.

And I’m standing for Scottish Labour because I know that the opportunities that helped my family out of generations of poverty, out of the life that saw my great-gran in the workhouse, all came because of them.

The education we were given.

The healthcare we could rely on.

The council house that would never be taken from us.

None of that happened by accident. It happened because working people organised, fought and won.

I’ve stood for election before. I know how hard it is and I know how much it asks of you. I also know that change only happens because people decide to step forward, even when it would be easier not to.

I don’t come to this with grandiosity or entitlement. I come to it with a sense of responsibility.

Because if people who know how this feels don’t step forward, nothing changes.

That’s why I’m standing.