UNISON ’s Gareth Snell in final stages of high profile election

The Labour candidate for the key Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election believes that his day job with UNISON – “at the coalface of public services” – has had a major impact on his campaign. Gareth Snell (pictured with Labour MPs Angela Rayner, left, and Ruth Smeeth) is in the last stages of a high-profile election fight, in which his chief rival is UKIP leader Paul Nuttall. One of the key differences between the Mr Snell and Mr Nuttall is that only one of them is a local. While the UKIP leader recently moved to the constituency in order to contest it, Mr Snell has lived in the Potteries for the past 13 years. He is a former leader of the nearby Newcastle-under-Lyme council and has worked with UNISON since 2014 – first as an organiser and now as a manager for the West Midlands region, responsible for such internal services as the membership database, regional finances and branch democracy at conference. “Trade unionism and the Labour Party go hand in hand,” he says, in a break from the campaign trail. “My local organising post was in this constituency. “I can draw on stories that have been told to me by people at the coalface of public services – talking to members in hospitals about how much pressure they’re under, local government employees who are overworked because of massive cuts and redundancies, higher education members about the funding issues in their sector. “All of this is informing my campaign. Also, being a trade unionist means I’m able to...
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