Miranda Perks & Jamie Tennent,
Labour Councillors for
Weoley & Selly Oak
I have skills which I can put to a wider use, to help right wrongs and represent voices in the local community which are not being heard. I am a comfortable public speaker and I am confident and, I like to think, personable. I am aware that being a Councillor is not easy.
Particularly now, after years of austerity, measures which have seen community services depleted, the charity sector suffer, and Local Government budgets cut. The pandemic is adding a further burden to over-stretched resources. However, I am committed to ensuring that what can be done is done to ensure that standards are raised in our public services and that the voices of local communities are heard.
My parents (now retired) both worked in the education sector. I am particularly interested in education and more specifically early years childcare – the costs of which are now
extortionate. I think the provision of affordable and accessible early years is vitally important.
I have poured my life and soul into the Labour party over the past number of years, as a volunteer and a staffer. I have worked endlessly to try and elect Labour candidates. I do this because I look around my home community in Northfield and I can’t stand to see the families going hungry, seeing our under- funded schools and the relentless attacks on our NHS
from this conservative government.
I started my Labour Party journey while still at school campaigning in the 2015 elections and getting my first place on a CLP exec as Northfield’s youth officer. I am now LGBT+ Officer. Since 2018 I have been Sec of LGBT+ Labour West Midlands and since 2020 Sec of the National Co-op Party LGBTQ+ Council. I am also involved in GMB Proud, the LGBT+ strand of the GMB Union.