7 new MPs with very interesting backgrounds

This election will see almost 300 new faces take their seats in parliament.

The vast majority form Sir Keir Starmer’s landslide – but there are dozens of fresh-faced Liberal Democrats, independents and new MPs from smaller parties.

Here we look at some of those with interesting backgrounds.

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Roz Savage, Liberal Democrats

Ms Savage is the only woman to have rowed solo across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

The 58-year-old holds four Guinness World Records for her sporting triumphs, which came after an Oxford law degree and 11 years of being a management consultant.

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As an ocean rower, she has spent more than five months alone at sea.

She was given an MBE in 2013 for services to fundraising and the environment – and beat Conservative candidate James Gray with 22,961 votes to 17,988 in Cotswolds South.

Pat Cullen, Sinn Fein

Ms Cullen increased Sinn Fein’s majority in Fermanagh and South Tyrone from 57 – once the UK’s most marginal seat – to more than 4,000.

Although she won’t take her seat in the Commons, as per her party’s policy, she has prior experience of being in Westminster.

As general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing for three years, she sat around the negotiating table with Tory ministers and eventually brokered a 5% pay increase for nurses in England.

Before joining the union eight years ago, she had been a nurse for more than four decades. Four of her five sisters also have the same job.

Torsten Bell, Labour

Mr Bell was the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation – an economic think tank with a focus on fighting poverty – from 2015 until earlier this year.

His analysis of the previous government’s handling of the cost of living crisis has increased his public profile in recent years.

Before joining the foundation, he served as former Labour leader Ed Miliband’s director of policy, and a special adviser to former chancellor Alistair Darling during the 2008 financial crisis.

He has received some criticism for standing in Swansea West with no prior links to the area, but won the seat by 8,515 votes.

Joani Reid, Labour

Ms Reid’s late grandfather Jimmy Reid became world famous for leading Glasgow’s shipbuilders in their work-in protest between 1971 and 1973.

The work-in was a response to Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath’s plan to close the Upper Clyde shipyards. Instead of striking or staging a sit-in, the workers locked out their managers to prove they could fulfil orders themselves.

Celebrities, including John Lennon and Sir Billy Connolly, showed their support and eventually Mr Heath backed down.

His granddaughter Joani was a councillor in Lewisham, south London, after moving to the capital for university – but now occupies the seat of East Kilbride and Strathaven.

Rupert Lowe, Reform UK

Mr Lowe beat the Conservatives in Great Yarmouth by 1,426 votes.

The 66-year-old’s bids to enter the Commons date back to the 1997 election when he stood unsuccessfully for the Referendum Party.

As a Brexiteer, he played an active role in the Vote Leave campaign and was elected as a Brexit Party Member of European Parliament for the West Midlands before the UK left the bloc.

He is also known for two tenures as chairman of Southampton Football Club – from 1996 to 2006 and 2008 to 2009, which coincided with the team’s relegation from the Premier League and financial difficulties linked to a new stadium.

Sian Berry, Green Party

Sian Berry was the co-leader of the Greens from 2018 to 2021 before a short tenure as sole leader. She was a London Assembly member from 2016 to 2024.

Ms Berry founded the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s in Camden, where she was a councillor, in 2003.

The national campaign was aimed at stopping the vehicles “taking over our cities” and often saw fake parking tickets placed on 4x4s attributed to Ms Berry.

She replaces her Green Party colleague and former leader Caroline Lucas, who is retiring, in Brighton Pavilion.

Georgia Gould, Labour

Ms Gould has been the leader of Camden Council in north London since 2017, having been a councillor since 2010.

She is the daughter of Philip Gould, Baron Gould of Brookwood, who was a key adviser to Sir Tony Blair and his New Labour government, and Gail Rebuck, chairman of Penguin Random House publishing, who is also a Labour peer.

Referred to by some as a “red princess” because of her Labour background, she recalls spending childhood holidays with the Blair family, Alastair Campbell, and the late Dame Tessa Jowell.

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