Laura Pidcock

Laura Pidcock (born 19 August 1987) is a British Labour Party politician. She has been the Shadow Minister for Labour since 2018 and the Member of Parliament for North West Durham since the 2017 snap election.

Early life and career
Pidcock was born in North Shields, North Tyneside and raised in New Hartley and Seaton Delaval, Northumberland. Her parents were both active in politics. Her mother Mary was a social worker while her father Bernard was an office manager who has sat on Northumberland County Council since 2008. As a young child, she attended demonstrations with her parents against the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and against apartheid. Pidcock has stated, "From a very, very young age I was taught to see everything through a political lens and through a class lens," and that at school she was known as "the political one" and a "swot."

She studied politics at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was a mental health support worker before working within, then managing, the education team at anti-racism charity Show Racism the Red Card. Pidcock was a councillor on Northumberland County Council until losing her seat in the 2017 UK local elections.

Parliamentary career
Only weeks prior to the 2017 UK general election, Pidcock was selected to stand for Labour in the safe seat of North West Durham, when the previous MP, Pat Glass stood down.

A feminist, she said in her maiden speech, that the Palace of Westminster dated from "a time when my class and my sex would have been denied a place in it, because we are deemed unworthy". Her speech was well-received by many and shared over 200,000 times on social media. On 12 January 2018, she was appointed Shadow Minister for Labour.

Politics
Pidcock is a strong critic of the incumbent Conservative government. She attracted attention in mid-2017 for calling them "the enemy" and saying she was "disgusted at the way they’re running this country". Pidcock has also stated she has "absolutely no intention of being friends with any Tories."

She maintains the government is doing far too little for poor people, and that her constituency has suffered long-term deindustrialisation and a lack of investment, leading to significant financial difficulties for many residents. She has highlighted the rise in volunteer organisations to help support people who she feels have been left behind by the state. On Universal Credit Pidcock condemned the rollout just before Christmas when poor people's budgets are very tight. She asked, ‘My question for the Prime Minister is this. Is the roll-out a matter of gross incompetence or calculated cruelty?’

In June 2017, Pidcock raised the issue of social housing saying she would accept a council house, but there were none available and was renting in the private sector. She was unable to afford the deposit for her first home, despite her MP's salary, because of university debt.

Pidcock supports the policies of party leader Jeremy Corbyn. She supports Britain leaving the European Union; her constituency voted strongly to leave and she said after her election that, “people were suffering even within that structure... Why would anybody vote for things to stay the same when their life is crap? Or it feels crap?”. She has been tipped as a future party leader, though she has said she is more interested in grass-root politics. She socialises little with MPs, preferring to spend time in her constituency where possible.