The Labour candidate set to go up against Boris Johnson in Uxbridge and South Ruislip says the former prime minister’s constituents “deserve a full-time MP”.
Danny Beales, 34, a councillor and charity worker who grew up in the area, told the Guardian that the contest will be a “bellwether seat” and could point to a Labour landslide if it falls out of Johnson’s hands.
He said the issues being felt by voters are also the key issues nationally – “on the doorstep people say they feel poorer”, Beales told the newspaper.
Discussing the chances of a “Michael Portillo moment”, when the then defence secretary lost to Labour’s Stephen Twigg in another outer London constituency, Beales said:
“Potentially, there could be a ‘Boris Johnson moment’, but my interest in standing isn’t about headlines, it’s because I think the area deserves a Labour MP and we desperately need a Labour government.”
But he will also be targeting Johnson personally. “People deserve a full-time MP, I’ve heard so many times from people of all political persuasions that they don’t get a response from Boris’s office, and that he only turns up once a year.”
Read the interview in full here.
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