Labour's Wakefield by-election candidate has vowed to give local people a voice in Westminster as he insisted, “I’m not an outsider”.
Simon Lightwood from South Shields, South Tyneside, was selected last month to battle the Tories and win back the Red Wall seat in the crunch by-election on June 23.
It angered some within Labour circles, with activists claiming Mr Lightwood was unfit to represent the city because he was not born and bred there.
“Ten years, I’ve lived here,” he said on the campaign trail with the Daily Mirror.
Mr Lightwood knows the constituency well, having worked as a staffer for the ex-Labour MP Mary Creagh.
Despite the Tories best efforts to portray him as an outsider, Mr Lightwood has been campaigning on behalf of local people for the past 20 years.
“I’ve met hundreds of people with various sorts of problems as a caseworker in Wakefield. Trust me I know the issues people are facing.”
The 41-year-old experienced poverty as a child but prefers to focus on youngsters that are living in poverty now amid the cost of living crisis.
Before living costs spiralled in April, 5,700 children in the city were already living on the breadline.
“There are thousands of people who are struggling to make ends meet. I think it's really important and valuable that I get it.”
Mr Lightwood’s family relied on benefits. “I remember seeing file demands coming through the letterbox and my parents trying to stop us from seeing them.
“We eventually lost our home. With no council houses available we went to live with my grandmother in a tiny two bedroom house. There were seven of us.”
As a 13 year old boy, he shared a room with his Grandma, auntie and his sister.
Somehow Mr Lightwood makes light of the difficult times, quipping: “I would not have minded so much if my Nana didn’t snore so much.”
Keen to avoid dwelling on his former struggles, he says: “I will be able to take this understanding to Westminster.
“I'm not just saying the words. I’ve walked in their shoes. I was on free school meals. People just really want someone to help them and someone to give them a voice again, they've had nobody representing this area for over a year, and they want something to stick up for them. And that's what I intend to do."
Why are Tories focused on portraying him as an outsider?
“All the Tories are saying is local, local, local but what do they plan to bring Wakefield locals? What is their vision?”
The Conservative candidate Nadeem Ahmed repeatedly refers to himself as “a real local candidate”.
Tory party chairman Oliver Dowden has even dived in, describing Mr Ahmed as a “real local voice for Wakefield”.
But the Conservatives' divisive language has turned some voters off.
One 57-year-old Labour swing voter recited the words of Jo Cox at his doorstep, “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us. I completely agree.”
Those words felt heavier as MPs marked the sixth anniversary of her murder in the Commons.
The voter, Robert Flemming, said: “I couldn’t believe what I read in some of the campaign leaflets.
“Local Tories are really trying to perpetuate division. They are trying to find anything to whack on their opponents knee and I really do not like that because we undermine democracy. But they can’t see past horrid battles of immigration and Brexit.”
Mr Flemming has only ever voted for Labour or the Greens, and he will be backing Keir Starmer ’s party at the by-election.
“It's just the dishonesty of Mr Johnson that amazes me. The dogma he has created. In some ways, it's almost like hatred.”
“How can they claim in their campaign leaflet that Labour will stop Brits from gaining the benefits of Brexit? There is more to Wakefield than the Brexit vote. Where is the policy?
“They said we, as in all Wakefield locals are Brexiteers, the Labour party is not, so vote for us. It’s shocking. I had to throw their leaflet in the bin.”
‘Vote Labour and kick Bojo in the nuts’, read the words of a homemade campaign poster in the window of lifelong Labour voters in Wakefield.
The lifelong Labour voter behind the sign, who asked not to be named, told the Mirror: “Labour has got to win this by-election.
“Coming from around here, a former mining community that my grandparents were a part of, we weren’t allowed to be anything else.
“We weren’t allowed to have dreams because of the Tories. Times have changed and we can’t be pushed backwards."
