Tara's Thoughts

On 26th February 2026, a handful of by-elections took place across the country.  The one that drew the most national attention was the Gorton and Denton parliamentary contest, and as a progressive woman, I was genuinely delighted to see elected a clearly progressive and openly trans-supportive woman, and, I was equally glad to see LibDem voters in the area do the smart thing and vote to keep Reform UK from gaining another MP. Closer to home, and with less fanfare, was a LibDem contest in Shirley Ward of Southampton City Council.   Won by George Percival in a by-election triggered by the council resignation of Satvir Kaur MP, Chris Shank took up the mantle of defending the ward after George resigned for personal reasons.   This is the election I am focusing this reflection on and, in doing so, perhaps cutting through some of the noise that tends to surround high-profile by-elections. In electoral politics, we love a military metaphor.   We talk about “campaigns”, ...

The childhood I experienced was one where I was taught to love my country.  I was a member of the Scout Association for nearly all of my childhood and teen years, only leaving the youth section of the organisation when I was 16 in order to pursue a Naval career.  When I got to University, I was an assistant leader for a local Scout Section for about 18 months during my undergraduate years, and I look back on that with a lot of fondness.  Combine the drummed-in words of “Do my duty to God and the Queen” of the last line of the Scouting Promise with my military background, and you have someone who could well have found themselves on the fast-track to the Conservative Party.  My upbringing was of a system that had experienced consistent investment through the Blair-Brown Labour years, and I had never seriously wanted for anything growing up.  I never experienced hardship that less fortunate individuals would have. In 2022, when I came out as a trans woman having ...