Rejected ballot papers: 160

Number of ballot papers: 54,018

Turnout: 73.75%

High Peak Labour Party announced yesterday (Monday) that Ruth George from Whaley Bridge has been selected as the Party’s candidate for the General Election on 8^th June.

Ruth, aged 47, has lived in High Peak for over 25 years – for 15 years in New Mills, then for the over ten years with husband Mark at Tunstead Milton, between Whaley Bridge and Chapel-en-le-Frith.

Ruth trained as a tax accountant and helped to found a successful accountancy business in Chapel-en-le-Frith when in her twenties, before taking up politics.

For the last 18 years Ruth has worked as Parliamentary Officer for shopworkers’ union Usdaw, campaigning on behalf of staff in retail, including on raising the minimum wage, improving rights to time off work for new parents, against cuts to tax credits and compensation for victims, and setting up the ground-breaking ‘Freedom from Fear’ campaign which addresses violence and abuse of staff in shops.

As mum to 4 children – Sam (25), Becky (22), Matty (10) and Danny (7) – Ruth is very much a part of the local community.  Having been a school governor for several  years, she is now a member of Whaley Bridge After-School Club committee, where she has set up a pension scheme for the staff and recently applied for a grant of European funding for new facilities for the Club and Whaley Bridge Primary School.

Ruth is a committed local campaigner.  Having fought against development on greenfield sites around Chapel for several years, in 2011 she helped to set up and was vice chair of Chapel Vision, the first community group to successfully produce a Neighbourhood Plan.  Recently, she has been lobbying Andrew Bingham MP about the government’s proposals for Grammar Schools and campaigning on the traffic in Whaley Bridge, organising a week-long traffic survey and persuading individuals and organisations to work together to tackle congestion.

“I am honoured to have been selected as the Parliamentary candidate for this area that I love and am committed to fighting for.  I look forward to meeting as many people as possible during the campaign, to find out what they want from their MP and government.

“There has never been such a huge difference between the political parties and the future they offer.  I want people in High Peak to know that there is a better alternative than a government which is about to close nearly 20 hospitals, cut £3 billion from our schools, plunge over 4 million working families into poverty through their harsh cuts to Universal Credit and refuses to rule out cuts to pension increases or higher tax and national insurance.  In contrast, I will promote Labour’s message of long-term investment in public services, fairness for working people, and decent support for pensioners and those who cannot work.

“This is a very short election campaign, so I will attend as many hustings meetings as I can, to enable voters across this widespread constituency to question and scrutinise all of their candidates, and I welcome Andrew Bingham’s commitment to me that he will also attend hustings.”

Fiona Sloman, Chair of High Peak Labour Party, welcomed the selection,

“Ruth is an excellent local candidate who is not only well-known for her campaigning in High Peak, but is very experienced in lobbying Parliament on behalf of low-paid workers.  She is absolutely committed to fighting injustice at every level and would make a great MP for High Peak.”