The selection of Lambeth Councillor Marianna Masters (Labour – Streatham Wells) as Labour’s MP-candidate for St Neots and Mid-Cambridgeshire has caused more than a little comment in a contest that might otherwise have seen a rematch between the three candidates that stood in South Cambridgeshire in 2019
The first anyone heard about it was a rumour from Michael Crick’s Tomorrow’s MPs account, followed by this.
Cllr Masters clearly has more than a few high profile supporters looking at the huge number of social media responses
“Marianna has been a Streatham Wells councillor since 2018. As a Lambeth born Black woman who has lived in this borough all her life, she is driven to increase opportunities and life chances for all who live and work in our richly diverse ward.”
Above – Cllr Masters’ Lambeth Labour page
“A parachuted-in candidate imposed by Labour’s powerful National Executive Committee, or a candidate that was so high calibre that she blew away the opposition when it came to meeting the voting members of the recently-established St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire Labour Party?“
Both Labour and Conservatives have a long history of parachuting in their favoured candidates in seats all over the country. So if this was the former, it’s not a new thing. After all, the present MP for South Cambridgeshire was strongly criticised by his opponents both for being a close associate of the now disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and for ‘controversial’ articles he wrote in a right wing magazine.
“What does a councillor in Lambeth know about St Neots and Mid-Cambs?”
These will be the sorts of questions Cllr Masters will inevitably have to answer – but all candidates putting themselves forward for selection to constituencies far from their current homes will be more than aware of this. It may be something that she chooses to address in her first publicity video.
Aside from that, as Phil Rodgers picked up, people will be wondering what her political views are within Labour. I had a browse around online and found this clip from an event organised by the Fabian Society covering policies on education and children. Note the Shadow Education Secretary was also on the panel.
Above – Fabian Society 25 Jan 2023
A graduate of the Labour Women’s Network programme for potential candidates – a programme that a number of Cambridge Labour members and councillors are on or have graduated from (including Cllr Anna Smith who stood as Labours candidate for the Police & Crime Commissioner Elections), one thing Cllr Masters clearly is, is very well connected within some of the upper reaches of the Labour Party.
Above – the Chairman of the Labour Party and former Shadow Chancellor Annelise Dodds -whose academic credentials are impressive.
(If you want to read her Ph.D thesis on liberalisation and the public sector in the context of international students’ education policy, you can read it here)
“Yeah that’s great – but it ain’t gonna solve all of the teething problems with the newbuilds in Cambourne and it ain’t gonna get a new GP surgery established in Northstowe, is it?”
Some of you may have seen the petition being promoted by the incumbent MP for South Cambs.
The problem is GP provision is not provided for by the local planning authority (in this case South Cambridgeshire District Council). It’s also not provided for by Homes England – which is a quango (a government agency) of the Department for Levelling Up, Homes, & Communities – which is Michael Gove’s realm. And as for the Department for Health, the less said about his predecessor-but-one, (i.e. not Heidi Allen), who was the former Health Secretary who made a complete mess of things in the early 2010s, the better!
Now, I’ve had my bit to say about both Cambourne and Northstowe and how the residents deserve better from what has been the multiple failures of strategic planning involving ministers, councillors, planning professionals, consultants, developers, and more. Both developments are modern, recent developments which means that a critical mass of residents will be relatively new to the area.
“Will that critical mass of new arrivals mean that the ‘you’re not from round here so don’t know anything about our issues’ criticism has a limited impact?”
That’s what I’m wondering. Because Cambridgeshire has had an additional constituency added to it due to the big increase in population on the back of the sci-tech boom and house-building that came with it. Therefore having an MP who can empathise with the teething problems of moving to a new area may not be the drawback it might otherwise be in a long-settled area with a very stable population. If anything the challenges of a high population turnover that we see in Cambridge is something Cllr Masters will have more than enough experience of managing in local government in London.
Above – the area labelled 53 in sky blue colour is the new St Neots & Mid Cambs Constituency, seen in the context of Cambridge City (minus Cherry Hinton as well) and the re-oriented South Cambridgeshire.
Above – from the Boundary Commission’s map – you can see St Neots (far left in wards 11, 12, 13, 14), Cambourne (3), Bar Hill (1), Longstanton (incl Northstowe (9)), and Girton (including Girton College (8))
I think there will be a number of issues that will come up that will be specific to the three constituencies surrounding Cambridge.
In fact, due to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus’s housing study published recently, that number of constituencies will rise due to the railway stations and lines identified within it.
Above – West Suffolk (Dullingham, Newmarket, and Kennett), Saffron Walden – soon to become North West Essex (safe as castles Tory seat), and the North Hertfordshire commuter towns along the Cambridge to King’s Cross line will be ones to watch as well.
The issues will likely include:
- East West Rail – although the preferred route has been designated by ministers, it’s still a very hot political potato. In particular the choice by Grant Shapps to have it as a diesel line, not an electrified line. (This could be an issue on the Blue vs Green frontline where the Tories lose votes, especially as their candidate is a minister in the Department for Transport and will be accused of having no impact on this policy)
- Community forming in the face of massive housing growth. Here’s a lesson from Basingstoke half a century ago. Note in 1967, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson designated Peterborough a Third Generation New Town (1967-87 – see the outline proposals in here). What can the great railway and cathedral city teach us from their experiences?
- Transport infrastructure to Cambridge’s growing sci-tech parks. Provision of transport from all three of the constituency’s towns remains woeful. Note the incumbent MP will come in for a lot of hostile questions given his ministerial role at the DfT where not only will he have to account for his own decisions, but those of his party’s councillors in establishing the Greater Cambridge Partnership (and the first four years where they had a majority on the GCP Board), and also the Combined Authority’s first four years.
- And finally….governance. Just as more than a few residents in Cambridge feel that they cannot influence the future of our city (see Gove’s Case for Cambridge, and big discussions happening in expensive conferences far away), residents in the towns and villages may feel the same. And not just those opposing the scale of Gove’s ambitions. Those who support the housing developments due to the housing crisis may also want to know why we continually fail to provide the essential facilities like GPs and dentists, alongside the nice things that we should be entitled to expect as the bare minimum. Such as large parks with clean and secure toilets, and community centres that can provide for more than just a small yoga class.
I hope it’s an engaged and vibrant contest that results in a high turnout. The sooner the first public debates can be organised, the better – as that will get people talking and help concentrate the minds not just of St Neots & Mid Cambs, but for the rest of us in the area too. Given Labour are still to confirm their candidates for South Cambridgeshire (re-oriented) and East Cambridgeshire, they continue to give their opponents an ever-growing head start. Time to get their skates on.
Food for thought?
If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to:
- Follow me on Twitter
- Like my Facebook page
- Consider a small donation to help fund my continued research and reporting on local democracy in and around Cambridge.
Below – one option to improve governance and accountability is to move to a unitary structure of local government. The Cambs Unitaries Campaign was formed to secure such better local government arrangements. See https://www.cambsunitaries.org.uk/our-objective/
The Cambridge Town Owl 