With less than three weeks until Polling Day, The Herts Ad has been asking Parliamentary candidates in St Albans why they deserve your vote.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper is seeking a second term in Parliament, having deposed the Conservatives back in 2019. She has a majority of just over 6,000.
There are seven candidates in total on the ballot paper, and we asked each of them to tell us why they should be your next MP:
Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrat (MP for St Albans in the last Parliament)
It's been such a privilege to be your St Albans constituency MP. I've responded to more than 35,000 queries from constituents and I think I've shown St Albans the difference a hard-working Liberal Democrat MP can make.
St Albans is my home. I live here. I shop here. I socialise here and have commuted to work in Parliament from here.
I've put our local St Albans issues on the national stage: from local health services and high streets, to cladding, the cost of living, and my campaign to fix the Conservative's top-down broken planning system, which doesn't deliver the homes we need but does destroy the green belt.
know only too well that our NHS is on the brink of collapse, the cost of living is crippling and that our local environment - both our green spaces and rivers - are under threat.
The Conservatives have taken us for granted for too long. If you re-elect me, I will continue to stand up for our NHS, take bold action on the cost of living and protect our environment.
Here in the St Albans constituency, only the Liberal Democrats can beat the Conservatives. Labour came a distant third in the last General Election.
Please use your vote on Thursday 4 July to re-elect me as your hard-working Liberal Democrat MP.
Sophia Adams Bhatti (Labour Party)
If elected I will do everything in my power as a Labour MP in a Labour Government to improve the lives of people - whether that be fixing the NHS, supporting our schools, or ensuring that we have energy security as a nation so that we can bring down household bills.
With over 25 years experience across the public and private sectors I know what it takes to fix the deep challenges this nation faces, and how to get things done.
My commitment to the people of St Albans is to bring all that experience along with my resolve to serve them and to help rebuild Britain.
Only Labour can deliver a change of government, a vote for anyone else only makes that change less likely.
John Dowdle , Reform UK
The Liberal Democrat administration locally is set to irretrievably ruin St Albans. They propose building 15,000 properties to ruin the visual amenity and historicity of St Albans.
They have ruined the ancient Charter Market and once-thriving city centre of St Albans.
In collusion with County Tories, they wilfully squander £7 million on unwanted and unenforceable 20 mph speed restriction programmes. All at a time when many roads in the St Albans area are pocketed with deep and deepening potholes.
If elected as St Albans Member of Parliament, my immediate focus will be to become St Albans Prince of Potholes.
As MP for St Albans, I will get every pothole fixed – permanently – for the people of St Albans.
The Tories have broken Britain and Labour will end up bankrupting Britain, just as they have always done before.
Voting Liberal Democrat at a time of a national emergency is a completely wasted vote.
Only Reform UK is Ready to Save Britain.
Simon Grover, Green Party
Our country is facing crises on the cost of living, in our public services and with our climate and environment. Greens have plans to improve the things that matter for families and communities - from housing to health, childcare to transport.
And we’re the only ones with proper answers to the huge challenge of the climate and ecological emergency.
Labour are heading for a mighty win on 4 July. But their plans for the country sound increasingly weak.
It’s essential that Green MPs are there to push Labour to invest properly in public services, and transform the economy into a green powerhouse fit for the future. Those Green MPs need to be backed by millions of Green votes from right across the country, Your vote can be one of them.
Every Green vote puts pressure on the government to fight climate chaos. Every vote also means Greens get more media coverage and it increases public funding for Green MPs.
You don’t need to worry about letting the Conservatives in by voting Green. That’s because the polling companies are predicting a huge 53% majority for Lib Dem Daisy Cooper, with the Conservative vote crashing to 22%. So you do not need to vote tactically. If you want to vote Green, vote Green.
Read more:
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What are the polls in Herts saying ahead of General Election 2024?
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Dafydd Morriss, Heritage Party
The Heritage Party stands for simple, common-sense values and principles that will restore pride, purpose and prosperity to our nation. Key priorities include:
(1) Taking back control over our borders: mass, rapid immigration is out of control. We need to stop the boats and reduce net immigration to sustainable levels. We will push illegal boats back to France, place strict caps on work and student visas, and train our own young people to do the jobs needed.
(2) Ending 'Net Zero' insanity. There is no climate emergency. We will end the war on cars and carbon-based energy. We will abolish low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), 15-minute cities and the coming ban on petrol and diesel cars. We will ensure cheap, reliable, continuous energy from coal, oil, gas and nuclear to keep the lights on and power our businesses and industry.
(3) Protecting our children: we will ban Comprehensive Sex Education introduced by the Tories and stop school children being exposed to appalling lesson content that confuses them about gender and undermines traditional family values. We will make it illegal to sexualise children.
4) Ending rampant ‘development’: we will preserve what is left of the natural beauty of our countryside, towns and villages, by drastically reducing net immigration.
Stewart Satterly, Social Democratic Party
I am standing as the parliamentary candidate for the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the St Albans constituency in the General Election.
I am standing as a candidate in the General Election because we’ve had 30-years to try out every flavour of neo-liberal politics - Conservative, New Labour and Tory/Lib Dem coalition.
The results are in: we’re bust. We will never get Britain back on its feet if we keep voting for these three parties, with their indifference to what we value. A vote for the SDP won’t change the world tomorrow, but it’s an honest vote. This election must send a strong signal about what we want, for ourselves and our children.
We need to have transport and utility companies that work for us, not overseas investors, affordable housing built to a good standard and located according to need and not to maximise the profits of developers. We need to reinvest in our own manufacturing rather than rely on imports.
St Albans has it’s own unique issues, particularly in the areas of transport, housing and over-development that ,if elected, I will work hard to address but it’s easy to make promises you’ve no intention of fulfilling.
I’ll only promise to do everything in my power to represent the people of this fantastic constituency with integrity and honesty.
James Spencer, Conservative Party
As someone who is St Albans born and bred, I know the issues that matter most to local residents, the most important being protecting our green belt.
We have been let down by a Lib Dem council that has has failed to produce a Local Plan, leaving our green belt at risk. Nationally, the threat from Labour and the Lib Dems couldn’t be more severe.
Both of these parties plan on imposing top-down housing targets ranging from 380,000 to 1.5 million new houses. Neither party have indicated where these houses are going to be built nor have they said how the green belt will be protected. As your MP, I will make protecting our green belt my number one priority.
A vote for anyone other than the Conservatives also puts school places at risk. Having attended two of them, I know how brilliant our local schools are.
I also know how competitive it is to get your child into them. Labour’s vindictive policy of taxing private schools will have a detrimental impact on school places. If hardworking parents are priced out of sending their children to a private school, the state school sector will be overrun and overwhelmed.
To save our green belt and to protect school places I urge you to vote Conservative on July 4.
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