3:40pm Monday 10th November 2003
By Andrew Raine
OF all the key battles that won and lost the 1983 general election, historians are unlikely to recount the fight to save Hounslow’s elderly, or the local Friends of the Earth battling to save Silverhall Park.
Such were on the agenda however, at Heston Junior School general election, when an ambitious ten-year-old Labour candidate called Seema Malhotra began to make her first forays into the political world.
The school had been holding a mock general election, to coincide with the national election, and she was standing as a Labour candidate, pretending to be Michael Foot, and the elderly were top of her agenda - it was, she laughs, the "first election I lost".
Twenty years down the line, Seema is hoping to unseat another outspoken Tory - but this time it will be the leader of Richmond Council, Tony Arbour, the borough’s current representative at the London Assembly, when she takes him on in the June 2004 elections - again under the Labour banner.
The fight will be hard - if current council seats are any indication. The London South West constituency covers three boroughs. While Labour has a historically strong grip on the borough of Hounslow, Richmond is currently strongly Conservative (38 out of 54 councillors, though with two Liberal Democrat MPs) and Kingston strongly Lib Dem (30 out of 48 of its councillors are Lib Dems, as are both its MPs).
However, in Seema’s view, the role of the assembly member is not just about local issues: "The job of a GLA member is about getting the right kind of partnership between local, regional and national government- that’s what can get us a better delivery of local services.
"I’ve never limited myself to borough politics," she says.
"The revolution of London government has been very important - it was a mistake to get rid of it and showed a lack of foresight from the Tories.
"You need an office for London and you need a figurehead for London to continue to play on the world stage," and likewise for the international stage: "I’m very pro European and think it’s important we have a strong voice for London in Europe."
It’s a stage she knows a lot about - whilst doing her degree in philosophy and politics at Warwick, she was singled out for a scholarship to the USA in her second year, and she is currently on the national executive for the Fabians (of which she is a former young chair), where she has hosted a whole series of seminars at embassies and high commissions on International relations.
She has not forgotten her local roots - far from it - but to be effective: "We have got to think strategically for London, and make our case at a national level - like the Olympics - I really hope the Olympics will come here but what we need to make sure of is that south west london also gets the benefits - like transport improvements.
"We need an improvement of transport and need to create the infrastructure for the 21st century - I support crossrail and want to see it run from Hounslow to Heathrow and to incorporate the line to Kingston.
"We also need to ensure improvements to the rail services, both under ground and over ground."
Another transport issue that will be near the top of her agenda is the growth of Heathrow Airport via a possible third runway.
"Hounslow would be one of the worst hit, but the damage would extend to Richmond and Kingston. The noise at local schools and the human impact is too high.
"Two villages face destruction - or 10,000 homes. You can rebuild houses, but not communities. OK, so it’s important to the Labour government, but it’s our role to raise the issue locally, to get the region seen in a greater light."
She is in a good position to do so - last year she finished a part time post working as a policy advisor for Trevor Phillips, who chaired the London Assembly last year. From there, as Seema says, the assembly itself seemed like the natural next stop.
Also crucial in her view, is the lack of affordable housing across all three boroughs, and she hopes to expand the creative industries. She raves about Kingston’s new £8 million theatre, and the fact that in addition to Richmond’s exquisite theatre scene, 60 per cent of London theatre goers are from the south west.
Aside from Heston in 1983, Seema was also involved in one of the region’s most intriguing results at the last round of local elections, when against all odds, she lost a supposedly strong Labour seat in Brentford not to the Tories, nor the Lib Dems, but a keen football fan, Luke Kirton, whose one election pledge was to help Brentford Football Club relocate. So dumfounded were the rest of the Labour group that they forced two recounts - taking the whole process well past 3am, but to no avail.
"It was very disappointing," Seema sighs. "The club was doing so well at the time - it would have been like voting for England during the world cup," she shrugs, though adding "the club is highly valuable and I’ll do what I can through the GLA campaign. Should I be elected, I hope to look at the broader issue of sport around London.
"What the election showed is that local issues can become a key motivation for people to get involved in politics, which is great."
This is after all, why she entered politics in the first place: "I didn’t want to be a politician, I just grew into it through wanting to make a difference to the community, its always interested me to see how you could change things.
Growing up in Feltham and Osterley as one of five children vying for her parents’ attention, Seema has experience of ways to get her voice heard: "With such a large family, I guess I had to be strong at winning arguments - I can remember arguing about right and wrong from a very young age - arguing over who was to blame for what. I think that triggered my interest in politics very early on.
"I never really thought about being in a big family though - I love being around people, which has always been important - my parents ran a shop that sold school uniforms and played a real part in the community - I grew to love talking to people."
This driving force remains to this day: "I also want a sense of engagement. People should be involved. I want to get out as much as I can and meet people. Some of the most interesting stories I’ve heard are from the people I’ve met knocking on doors - whether it’s been the older ones that can remember before the airport was built, or whether it’s the ten-year-olds telling you what’s important to them. I was ten once too, and I can remember how important it all was to me then.
"I’ve really enjoyed doing street stalls already in Richmond and Kingston to raise my profile there and the response has been very good: you have to work with the residents’ associations and with partners through the business community.
“At the end of the day all want a healthy local economy - we want opportunities for everybody and we want a good quality of life.
“London is a fantastic place and can be so much more - but only if we go out and make it happen."
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