Vikas Aggarwal on the campaign trail

THE Liberal Democrats have unveiled their parliamentary candidate in Islington North as members met in Bournemouth for their annual autumn conference.

The party has struggled to make much ground in the constituency held by Jeremy Corbyn for more than four decades but insists that people are ready “for some fresh blood”.

Vikas Aggarwal will be the name on the ballot paper at the next general election.

“We’ve got a Labour mayor, and Labour pretty much across the central councils, they have the MPs, and yet they’re constantly finger-pointing towards the Tories when things in their constituencies don’t go well,” he said.

“They talk about poor housing, rising crime, and they have the approach that it’s not their fault when several layers of government are run by the Labour party. They treat voters with contempt, they expect them to just vote for them and be happy with it, and then not give a good service in return.”

The Labour Party, having barred Mr Corbyn, its former leader, from standing at the next election, has yet to select a new candidate. Mr Aggarwal said that regardless of this, it was time for somebody new.

Speaking at the Lib Dem conference

“In my dream world we would have a ban on second jobs, and a term limit, to make sure we have fresh blood and we clamp down on complacency,” he said.

“People can be MPs for too long. We’ve got an issue where in trying to be representatives of society, they lose touch with society. They get so far away from job insecurity, facing rising housing costs, and the issues people are facing with the cost of living crisis.”

Mr Aggarwal admitted he’s “not from Islington, [and I] don’t think I’ve spent a lot of time in Islington” but he’s adamant he knows what the issues are.

“I want to invest more in youth centres,” he said. “We have a knife crime epidemic. It’s a burden on businesses and communities. I’m not going to say that people who commit these crimes are absolved of their guilt, but we are setting them up to fail [by underfunding youth provisions].”

He added: “With [Keir] Starmer potentially coming into power nationally, there isn’t going to be a big cheque in the post, but I would expect there to be a better offer for councils. We’ve called for devolution of power to local councils, and in doing so you allow local authorities to spend in ways that make sense for local areas.”