Last week's General Election result in Dagenham & Rainham was a testament to all the hard work of the past five years. It is an honour and a privilege to be re-elected as the local Member of Parliament and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those that voted.
I also want to thank everyone that helped in the campaign, it was an amazing feat of people power with literally hundreds of residents helping throughout. We had a strong team at the core with a good plan and faultless organisation, and all of these factors contributed to the outcome. I am extremely happy that not only did we retain the seat for Labour, but with crushing defeats across the country we managed to almost double the majority from 2,630 in 2010 to 4,980.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the other candidates that stood in the election, the council staff, the police and the local residents who all worked hard to ensure that the election ran smoothly.
In the last five years I have worked closely with residents and the community, dealing with over 800 constituents concerns on a weekly basis. Another five years of Tory government will do nothing to ease this. I anticipate that with more cuts on the horizon, a higher number of people will fall through the cracks and need help. I have a good team in my office and we will do all we can to continue helping the constituents of Dagenham & Rainham.
As a community we have had many victories ? together we saved the Dagenham police station and we fought off the government's initial plan to build a prison between Dagenham and Rainham. There is still a lot more to do, and that is what the next five years are about, protecting what we have and fighting for a better future for local people. The Tories are still trying to force a prison on us and the Dagenham Civic Centre is still under threat of closure. As the Member of Parliament it is my job to get the best for residents, and moving forward that is what I intend to do.