The Labour candidate for the new Penrith and Solway parliamentary constituency launched his campaign for election on Saturday with a series of street meetings across the area.
Keswick’s Markus Campbell-Savours, aged 42, who is already a member of Cumberland Council, set up a ‘soap box’ in Penrith, Cockermouth and Maryport to help spread his message and engage with constituents at the open air meetings.
It was a technique borrowed from his father, Dale Norman Campbell-Savours, who was the MP for Workington from 1979 to 2001 and currently sits in the House of Lords.
“I am a local man, born and brought up in Keswick, where I live with my wife and family,” he said. “I’m very honoured to have been chosen by local Labour members as the party’s candidate and I will be even more honoured to be elected to represent the area that I know so well in Parliament.
“I live in the constituency and I share people’s concerns, from getting timely and accessible health care, to rural bus services, to the worrying growth of holiday lets that are impacting on housing and social bonds in our small towns and rural communities.”
A general election is due within the next year, and perhaps as soon as May. It will be the first time that voters will elect a Member of Parliament for the new Penrith and Solway constituency, which has been created due to boundary changes and includes parts of the former Workington, Carlisle, Copeland, and Penrith and the Border constituencies.
Mr Campbell-Savours toured the area to launch his key priorities for Penrith and Solway, which stretches from Maryport on the Solway coast to Alston high in the Pennines and from Dalston in the north to Borrowdale in the south.
“Thirteen years of the Tories have ravaged our communities,” said Mr Campbell-Savours, who was selected at a packed meeting in Wigton last December. “Families here are struggling, with sky-high energy bills, stagnating wages and the NHS and other public services at breaking point.
“We need an MP and a government that works for all of us, not just for those at the top. Labour under Keir Starmer is determined to give people hope for the future and to reverse the damage and decline the Tories have inflicted on the NHS, our social care services, and on people’s wages and mortgages and the public finances. This is one of Labour’s target seats and we can win here. I am working hard to ensure there is the change of government at Westminster that so many people are crying out for. People have had enough of having their standards of living eroded and the country dragged down.”
Mr Campbell-Savours said his priorities for Penrith and Solway are investment and jobs, with Cumbria at the heart of Labour’s renewable energy plans; tackling the cost of living crisis, backed by a home insulation plan that meets the challenge of rural housing; more funding for rural buses and local rail; truly affordable housing and a cap on holiday lets; and a recruitment strategy for the local NHS and other struggling public services.
He was joined on the campaign trail by David Allen, the party’s police, fire and crime commissioner candidate.
“I am going with a campaign method that is considered to be old fashioned by some people, but we believe it is important to be on the streets speaking to people and letting them know that we are there, readily accessible for them, listening to their views,” said Mr Campbell-Savours.
He said he grew up with his father’s soapbox sitting in the garage and he remembered that it was brought out every general election.
He said there were a few boxes over the years which were given to their candidates elsewhere in the country. “It’s a bit of a family tradition, this,” he added.
He said that he had received a mixed response and added: “I think it’s been a mixture of really positive and they are liking the fact that we are on the streets talking and being bold and quite brave about our messages but I think there have been some people who, if anything, have been puzzled by it.
“It’s not something they are used to seeing and it’s the politics of old. It’s a shame really because I think it’s a great way to tell people what we are about.”
He added: “I am looking forward to the election very much. I think the sooner that Rishi Sunak calls it the better. There are things that we want to get on with as a Labour government and we can’t do it until he’s called that election.”
