Tulip Siddiq - Camden candidate for 2010 elections

Tulip is active in all sorts of campaigns, from the very local in Camden, where she is part of the Kings Cross Labour Action Team, to the international, where her family's involvement in Bangladeshi politics has led to her working for the Awami League as part of its UK and EU lobbying unit and election strategy team, and getting involved in Barack Obama's Ohio campaign during the US presidential elections in 2008. Somehow she finds time to study for a second Master’s degree, as well as occasionally going swimming, playing piano and learning Spanish!

Tulip believes passionately in getting more women and people from ethnic minorities active in politics. As she argues:

And putting what she preaches into practice, Tulip stood previously as a candidate in an unwinnable seat in Camden to gain experience of campaigning and decide whether she loved it or hated it. The experience was a good one despite not winning. For 2010 she has been selected for a more winnable Labour seat and is already actively campaigning, doing leafleting, street stalls, phone canvassing, door-knocking and designing targeted literature for ethnic minorities.

Another good way to gain experience before standing is to work with or shadow existing councillors in their roles. Tulip was chosen as "escort" to the Mayor of Camden last year, which meant accompanying him on official, non-political, community visits. She describes enthusiastically the "privilege" of this experience and the "opportunity of being able to reach out to people who are not part of the Labour Party."

Tulip is a believer in the importance of communicating, especially with young people, and sees the role of councillor as another way to address directly issues of youth disenchantment, including with the Labour Party. She is a local primary school governor and is working to address issues such as bullying and truancy, and also has her own blog to enable her to communicate with more people: www.tulipsiddiq.com.