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GP to be next Respect candidate

Stuart Pike
21/12/2007

CHEETHAM Hill's prospective Respect party candidate has been announced, on an anti-war mandate including opposition to gagging of unions, private academies and congestion charging.

Former Monsall GP Dr Kay Phillips, of Cypress Street, Harpurhey, stood in the ward in the 2004 local elections, polling 519 votes, and has thrown her hat in the ring again for next May's poll.

Through her long-standing involvement with the Respect group and anti-war coalitions such as Stop the War and North Manchester Against Wars, Dr Phillips has demonstrated against the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, and supported anti-deportation campaigns such as Farhat Khan's.

Recently the North Manchester Respect group has spoken out against the city council's plans to introduce congestion charging zones in Manchester, and condemned the sacking of Crumpsall mental health nurse Karen Reissmann.

Dr Phillips said: "We try to provide a home for all those people who feel disenfranchised. We went round collecting signatures of people in Cheetham Hill against Karen Reissmann's sacking. The union rep is being sacked for speaking out, but people were very clearly supporting Karen."

She said the party was against the proposed C-charge because it was a "tax" on local people, adding: "They should be investing in public transport and making it so attractive so that people don't use their cars so much.

"The Academies are being presented as a fait accompli. My child has just come out of North Manchester High for Girls and they've got some really good teachers there. But there's getting on for 2,000 kids there - it's so anonymous. The academies are great big 'super' schools, but some look like factories to me.

"We think education should be publicly funded. The right to university education should be free and there should be equal access."