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Former deputy mayor of London selected as Labour candidate in bid to oust Welsh Secretary

24 Jul 2022 2 minute read
Heidi Alexander picture by UK Parliament. Robert Buckland. Picture by Jonathan Brady / PA Wire.

A former deputy mayor of London and Labour MP has been selected as the party’s candidate in a bid to oust Welsh Secretary Robert Buckland.

Heidi Alexander is bidding to win South Swindon, where Robert Buckland has held the seat since 2010 and currently has a majority of around 6,600 votes.

Ms Alexander left her seat of Lewisham East in 2018 to become Sadiq Khan’s deputy mayor for transport.

She tweeted that the selection “means the world to me”.

“Am determined to build a winning team here and to make a real difference to my home town,” she said.

“It was so good to get straight out onto the doorstep to talk to people about local issues after the selection meeting.”

She resigned from Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet in 2016 calling it “so inept, so unprofessional, so shoddy”.

In May 2018, she Deputy Mayor of London for Transport under Sadiq Khan and remained there until the opening of Crossrail. One of the trains is now named after her.

Taking to social media she said she was a “Swindon girl – born and bred. It’s time for a change here and I have the experience, skills and determination to make it happen”.

Robert Buckland became the new Welsh Secretary two and a half weeks ago after Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire MP Simon Hart resigned.

Robert Buckland was born and raised in Llanelli but became the first Welsh Secretary since the late Cheryl Gillan under David Cameron not to represent a Welsh constituency.

He served as Solicitor General for England and Wales from 2014 to 2019, until he became Minister of State for Prisons. He was appointed Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor by Boris Johnson in July 2019, serving until the cabinet reshuffle in September 2021.


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Cathy Jones
Cathy Jones
1 year ago

She and Starmer and the rest of the right-wing scum can go and whistle… I will never vote for Starmer’s Labour not ever…. if it means a Tory in Westminster for my constituency, that’s just tough luck, it won’t be a real difference anyway. I vote Welsh Labour and Plaid in Cymru’s politics, but there isn’t a place in Starmer’s Labour for people like me. The Lib-Dems are scumbags and any deal Starmer’s Labour makes with them won’t be worth the fag packets it’s scrawled on the back of if the Tories manage to limp in with enough seats to… Read more »

Richard
Richard
1 year ago

We need the likes of Rob B back in Wales and should he deliver the worst kept secret in Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 that we are to have a St Davids Day Bank Holiday he might well receive a justified ‘ Croeso nôl ‘ ….. the sadly missed likes of Jonathan Evans, David Melding and Glyn Davies with their own brand of ‘ moderate ‘ toryism is missed by many of the 20 plus cent who vote for for them.

arthur owen
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard

I heard Glyn Davies on the radio saying Sunak and Truss were friend of his. Ihe delusional or lying?

Peter Cuthbert
Peter Cuthbert
1 year ago

Let’s look for the positives in that bit of news. Apparently Heidi Alexander actually comes from the constituency in which she is proposing to stand. That is so much better than Labour enforcing their chosen person on a constituency who has no relationship to it and has not got any feel for the area. However, Starmer-Labour is very much a cause for concern for those of us who are non-Tories.

Quornby
Quornby
1 year ago

Regretably Starmer is lacking all charisma and bite. That won’t stop “Welsh” Labour singing his praises however and should there be a clash between a Labour Westminster and Cardiff Bay the whole gutless pack will start doffing their caps in the same old way.

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