As part of our General Election 2019 coverage, Labour candidate for Stevenage Jill Borcherds has her say on why she deserves your vote.

This election was called due to the chaos and division in the government, and their inability to deliver Brexit.

Whilst these millionaires and ex-Etonians squabble amongst themselves, Labour are ready and waiting to step forward with a plan to get our economy working across our town and country: Investment in infrastructure - from housing to transport to energy; investment in people; creating thousands of sustainable, skilled jobs, and re-training for the 21st century.

Crucially, Labour is the only party offering people a final say on Brexit - leave or remain, we must seek a way out of this government-led disaster.

Whatever the other parties may offer during this election campaign, we cannot forget how governments over the past nine years willingly slashed our services, froze our wages, and left us poorer.

Simply put: Austerity punished working people and held us all back. Only Labour is committed to ending austerity, only Labour can revitalise the NHS we founded and provide a National Education Service to match.

As a teacher, I have seen first-hand the devastating effect of cuts to school budgets, class sizes rising and children going hungry. I care deeply about education, and with others in the Barclay School Community, I helped lead the campaign against academisation that was unfairly forced on our local school.

The local MP at the time refused to support this community campaign. As your MP, I would have listened to our community, and fought alongside local people in resisting this backdoor privatisation.

I am not a career politician. Like you, I am disgusted at the behaviour I see from MPs who seem more interested in their own promotion than serving their constituents. I want this election to be about policies, not personalities.

I have lived in Stevenage for almost all of my adult life, and for the last 25 years, I have worked hard with integrity in many classrooms to give the very best life chances to thousands of Stevenage children.

As your MP, I would proudly continue to do so in Westminster on behalf of everyone in our constituency, from our town to our villages.