Labour has the "best" Mid Beds candidate for upcoming by-election says senior MP

Labour has the “best” Mid Bedfordshire candidate for the upcoming by-election, according to a senior MP.

Peter Kyle was in Wilstead on Saturday (September 2) as part of Alistair Strathern’s campaign to become the next Mid Beds MP.

Kyle, who became shadow secretary of state for science, innovation and technology on Monday, said: “We’ve got the best candidate in Ali.

“He grew up here, he went to school here, he has a very deep passion for the community here, and I think his priorities reflect very closely the priorities that residents are telling us about.

“And that is access to GP surgeries, because doctors are too scarce here, giving communities voice when developments are happening in their area, and they feel that they don’t have any say and they’re not listened to.

“Then the cost of living challenges that people face, particularly with the price of mortgages at the moment and the cost of energy bills.

“This needs somebody who will be local, who will have the courage to get deep into community issues that sometimes are quite fractious and bring people together.

“And then turn up in parliament and get stuck in when people here feel that they need a voice,” he said.

Kyle added: “Alistair is part of a party that is doing the hard work of preparing for government and it’s a government with an agenda for change, positive change that will prioritise nationwide the challenges that people experience locally.

“The Conservative Party is the only other party that can win locally, and is the party that historically wins here, and they are putting in all the hard work to prepare for opposition.

“They’re so busy rowing with each other that they have entirely forgotten their duty to listen and to serve our country.

“That’s why our economy has no growth, it’s why 7.9 million people are waiting for treatment on the NHS, and it’s why there are big big challenges in our schools which are literally crumbling.

“And Alistair not only has the work ethic and you don’t have to take his word for it, look how he’s working during the campaign.

“He also has the values which I think are representative of the community here.

“He will be part of a bigger movement for change, and I think that matters,” he said.

But according to the Daily Mail he is a Greenpeace activist who dressed up as a zombie for an “eco-zealot stunt”.

“He’s someone that cares about issues so much that when he sees that there is a threat to the way of life here in Mid Bedfordshire he will get off his backside and he’ll do the odd protest,” Kyle said

“But as he has said, he really cares for the dignity of this community, and if he has the opportunity to serve this community in parliament he will show the dignified hard-working face that this community would expect of any representative.”