Greens aim for first London MP in Holborn race
Getty ImagesOn 8 October, voters in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency will choose their next MP.
A win in this seat, which has returned Labour MPs for decades, would be a feather in the cap of the Green Party after Sir Keir Starmer stood down from the House of Commons at the start of September, shortly after leaving office as prime minister.
Labour are confident of holding on, but the Greens also have high hopes of winning their first London seat - and there are 13 other candidates in the mix all hoping to take this central London constituency.
BBC London spoke to five of the leading candidates.
Zack Polanski, the Green Party candidate, told BBC London he was "feeling confident or I wouldn't have put my hat in the ring in the first place, but I'm not complacent".
He said he would "work with the Labour government constructively on the things we agree with".
He added: "But where they're letting us down on things like housing, on nationalising Thames Water, on tackling the climate crisis - they're talking about drilling for new oil and gas - voting Green and sending me to Parliament is a way to keep this Labour government in check."
Polanski, who is a member of the London Assembly and leader of the Green Party in England and Wales, said people in the constituency "desperately need change".
"People are telling me over and over again they can't afford the cost of housing, they need more council housing.
"Renters who need rent control, leaseholders who need justice for leaseholders. The government said they'd end this feudal system of leasehold and then haven't taken the action."
When asked about the last time he ran in Camden, as a Liberal Democrat candidate for the council, he said: "I think in politics we need less politicians who treat political parties like football teams.
"Someone picks a team and they have to stick with it for life no matter what they do.
"Actually, there's lots of people including Liberal Democrats in this constituency that will recognise I'm the only person in this constituency who can beat Labour."
Sagal Abdi-Wali, Labour's candidate, said the campaign had been "really good" so far.
She told BBC London: "It's quite a big deal politically, absolutely,
"Andy Burnham's first by-election, standing against the Green Party leader; yeah, quite a big test for the party... you have the responsibility to deliver."
Abdi-Wali, whose family came to London from Somalia as refugees in the 1990s when she was a child, has been the leader of Camden Council since May.
She told BBC London: "For me, I'm just so excited.
"We've got an opportunity to make sure that we send a Labour member of Parliament that would be really local and really visible and committed to this area, someone who comes from this area.
"I grew up in this area my whole life. It's made me, Camden made me who I am, and to be able to now represent us in Parliament will be such a major thing."
Abdi-Wali acknowledged there were problems with housing and crime in the constituency.
"I want to make sure that particularly with housing, for instance, it's an issue. It's a crisis here in Camden. It's a crisis in London. It's a crisis all over the country and it needs a national response."
Abdi-Wali praised the former MP, Sir Keir.
"The work that Keir did as the member of Parliament for here for 11 years and before that the 30 years that he gave to social justice.
"Now with Andy Burnham, we have an opportunity to really work on a lot of those issues."
Peter Newman, the Reform UK candidate, said he served in the Metropolitan Police for 31 years from 1978 to 2009.
He told BBC London: "I had a good and varied career, but you know the time has come when, you know, woke leadership was getting too far into the Met."
Newman said he was standing because "I couldn't walk by any more".
"The chaos of the Conservatives and Labour that have left this country in, I had to do something.
"Reform is the only option for the people of Holborn and St Pancras, the only option in fact for the country."
He said the party was "picking up votes all the time in local elections".
"We're improving our percentages in London all the time, and we've got a tough election. And the people of Holborn and St Pancras, they want change.
"They've been let down by Keir Starmer, who clearly used it as a stepping stone just to become prime minister."
He says on the doorstep, voters are telling him "they're fed up with the crime, disorder. This borough is crime-ridden. It's soaked in crime."
If elected, Newman said he would be "relentless in pursuing the police chiefs and the mayor of London and his policing advisers in finding out what's gone wrong with policing in London".
Lib Dem candidate Patrick Stillman said his party's ground game in the by-election was helping it reintroduce itself.
He told BBC London: "We've got a really good liberal message: we care about the things you care about, and we're going to work really hard for you."
Stillman is a Camden councillor, representing West Hampstead in the north of the borough.
The party led a joint Conservative-Lib Dem administration when the council was under no overall control from 2006 to 2010.
He said the by-election "is our opportunity really to sort of re-represent ourselves and say, 'Actually, you know, look at the great work our team are doing, look at the great things we're saying in Parliament - wouldn't you like a bit of that here?'"
Stillman added: "We find community champions, we get leaflets through doors, we talk to people on their doorstep about what matters to them.
"That revolves around a lot of good activists, and sometimes it's a case of if you don't do something in an area for a while those people fade away and move away and then you find yourself a bit more boxed in.
"For us that's what I'm really excited about. With Holborn and St Pancras is a chance to get back on the doors, to get back into communities, to get back picking up issues of local people and saying, 'We'll champion them for you.'"
Ewan Cameron, the Conservative candidate, said he was the only candidate in the by-election talking about the housing crisis.
He told BBC London: "My opponents, what are they doing? They're talking about segregation. They're on the ballot paper, they want to have religion. Religion's not what we should be discussing.
"We should be in a position where every day, whether you're Jewish, whether you're Muslim, whether you have no faith, we all have the same issues. And again and again those issues are, what?
"Holborn and St Pancras is no longer family-friendly, there's not enough family homes."
Cameron, who was a Camden councillor for the Belsize ward from 1998 to 2002 and sat on the council's development control committee, said crime was another priority in his campaign.
"If you come out of work at night and walk home and you don't feel safe, who do you blame? I blame Labour. Labour has been the local MP, they have control of the local council, you've got Sadiq Khan who's the local Labour mayor; again and again London's not safe.
"The fact that the police sometimes come, but not always. But the blatant, the blatantness of the theft, it leaves you speechless."
Cameron added: "Camden [Council] sits on its hands and my biggest concern is the fact that if Labour win Holborn and St Pancras, they'll just be complacent."
The Holborn and St Pancras by-election will be held on Thursday 8 October.
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