Rutland and Stamford election candidate Joe Wood (Labour)

Labour candidate Joe Wood attended the hustings in Oakham.

Transcript

00:00Hello, I'm ready to go. My name is Joe Wood. I'm the Labour candidate and I'll echo what

00:09you said. It's wonderful to see such a great turnout tonight and thanks to everybody for

00:13coming along and giving up your time to listen to us. I was born in South Wales in a community

00:19which is very similar to this one, a rural area. My grandfather owned a farm, sheep and

00:26dairy and I helped out on his farm as I was growing up as a young person. I left school

00:33at 16 and I went to agricultural college and I then started working as a fish farmer. I

00:40then had a very fortunate encounter which led to me having the opportunity to go overseas

00:45and to work in wildlife conservation and I then spent the next 10 years working in wildlife

00:50conservation before doing a Masters degree in climate change and setting up my own small

00:57business which I still run to this day, advising businesses on sustainability matters. My motivation

01:04for standing, well I suppose I feel that there aren't enough people in Parliament who have

01:10a science background, who understand basic scientific principles and there certainly

01:15aren't enough people who understand the climate and nature emergencies. When I look at Parliament

01:20on the television I just despair. It feels like a branch of the Oxford Debating Society.

01:25It's a battle of two narratives and nowhere in that battle does there seem to be space

01:30for the objective real world and the real world problems that we're all facing and on

01:39that level I'd just like to read out a handful of facts if I can please. This is from Best

01:46for Britain so not from the Labour Party. Since 2010 we've lost 244 courts and tribunals,

01:54600 police stations have closed, 800 libraries, 25,000 NHS beds. The country is on its knees

02:02but I'm full of hope for the future. Now is the time for us to turn the corner, stand

02:08up, brush ourselves off and give ourselves back the future that we need. Thank you.