A 25-YEAR-OLD policy officer at the National House Building Council has been chosen to represent Labour in the St Ives constituency at the next General Election.

Philippa Latimer, who was brought up in East Anglia but now lives in London, has also worked for de Havilland, one of the country's biggest political news and monitoring agencies, and was seconded by them to a number of environmental organisations – WWF, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and Woodland Trust.

Philippa said: “I am extremely proud to be the Labour candidate for St Ives.

“I look forward to meeting as many people as possible over the coming months and offering positive and progressive politics for the future of the St Ives constituency and Cornwall more widely.”

Constituency chair, Cornelius Olivier, said: “We are delighted to have a candidate like Philippa – young, bright, articulate and committed.

“As she showed at our selection meeting, she is impressively well-informed already, and she is eager to learn still more about the constituency.” Last week, Philippa was in the constituency to address local party members at a lunch event.

She said that members should not be too disheartened about the current political climate.

“Here, in St Ives there are many ways in which the Labour Party can be cultivating membership and support.

“We can campaign to keep vital health services in Cornwall. We can champion sustainable, affordable housing. We can support better transport networks and we can demand proper democratic accountability in the new unitary authority.

“Labour may be down in the polls, but I hope, like me, you are far from being down in the dumps.”