High-flying lawyers and comms whizzkids: Meet the City types running for Parliament
Here are five City professionals selected by either the Labour or Conservative parties to stand in seats around the country for the next general election including lawyers and a CEO.
The City can be a demanding place but the demands of Westminster are very different: for one thing, most Square Mile types don’t get yelled at on social media and invited to bet £1000 on Rwandan policy with Piers Morgan.
But despite Parliament looking ever more unappealing to many, some in the City are on the ballot paper. Morning Wire runs the rule.
Lucy Rigby
Rigby is standing as a candidate in Northampton North for the Labour Party.
She is lawyer and partner at claimant law firm Hausfeld, based in the City, where she specialises in large-scale competition law and collective redress.
She started her career at magic circle law firm Slaughter and May and stayed at the firm for over four years until she moved to the Office of Fair Trading (now the Competition and Markets Authority). In 2015, she joined UK’s consumer champion Which?, where she advised on competition and consumer law matters.
She joined the law firm as an associate in 2017 and she was promoted as a partner in January 2021. She also currently serves on the board of the Collective Redress Lawyers Association (CORLA), an organisation that protects access to justice for claimants who have been harmed by wrongful conduct.
Rigby grew up near Northampton and was selected as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Northampton North. The area has been a Tory seat after the party gained the seat from Labour back in the 2010 election. It is currently occupied by Michael Ellis who gained the seat from Labour’s Sally Keeble.
Luke Charters
Charters is Labour’s parliamentary candidate for York Outer at the next General Election.
Charters is currently a senior manager in compliance at a US tech company, remote, based in its London office. He’s been at the company for over two years having joined from serving as a councillor for London Borough of Newham.
He held several roles at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) between 2019-2022 including technical specialist, strategy department. He was also at the Bank of England for over two years working as an analyst in payments and project coordinator.
This is not his first rodeo, as he previously stood for York Outer in 2017 coming in second place (21,000 votes) to the Tory seat holder Julian Sturdy.
Sturdy won the 2019 general election vote by a majority of 18 per cent with his Labour competitor coming in second place.
Sarah Sackman
Sackman is standing in Finchley and Golders Green as Labour’s candidates.
A barrister by trade, Sackman practices at City-based Matrix Chambers, where she joined over two years ago. She specialises in public law, which spans into encompasses public, planning, environmental, education, local government, election, rating and discrimination law.
Previously, she practice as well as acted as a housing expert at Francis Taylor Building, a chamber set that it known for its work in environment law.
She’s competing for a seat in Finchley and Golders Green, which is currently held by Tory member Mike Freer since the 2010 general election. Freer’s recent re-election in 2019 saw him win by nearly 12 per cent majority, with Liberal Dems coming in second and Labour’s Ross Houston coming in third place.
She will look to take the seat following incumbent Freer’s announcement he will quit at the next election, citing safety fears. Recently his office was the target of an arson attack.
Rose Hulse
Hulse is the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Bristol North East.
Hulse is the founder and CEO of TV streaming company, ScreenHits TV, a London-based tech company that was established in 2012. The business has provided B2B services for IMG, Disney Latin America, Sony Pictures Television, BBC Worldwide, Eone, Hasbro, HatTrick, and NBC Universal International.
She is an American-British entrepreneur born in the US with experience working at Weider Publications, The Hollywood Reporter, NBC Universal, and Sundance Institute.
She is also a member of the board of trustees for the Museum of the Home in London.
Back in October, she was selected as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for the newly re-established seat, Bristol North East and parts of South Gloucestershire.
The last time Bristol North East had an MP was after the general election of 1950 when the Labour and Co-operative Party won the seat.
Hulse has said her main areas of focus are supporting local businesses, regenerating high streets, protecting the greenbelt, rural transportation, supporting local churches, and building real affordable housing for working families.
Khobi Patterson-Vallis
Patterson-Vallis is a parliamentary candidate for Brighton, Kemptown and Peacehaven for the Conservative party.
She is a director at Hanover Communications where she provides strategic political counsel to the company’s clients across sectors including technology, creative industries, and financial services. She has been at the London-based communications consultancy for nearly three years.
Before that she was a civil servant working for Ministers across the Home Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from 2012 to 2021.
She also served as a part time duty press officer for Conservative Press office in 2010.
Brighton, Kemptown and Peacehaven seat is currently held by Labour and Co-operative party Lloyd Russell-Moyle who first won the seat in 2017 general election. He won the seat from the Conservative’s Simon Kirby.