As the local elections advance upon us, people may be forgiven for questioning the point of campaigning. I think sometimes local government is seen as the ‘plain Jane’ of British politics – just a walk on extra to central government’s starring role. The media doesn’t help the image; it tends only to focus on central government as the decision-making body, seemingly more concerned with Westminster squabbles than real people’s lives. They don’t seem to care that it is local government which has the day-to-day responsibility of running many public services – councillors don’t just deal with flytipping and broken paving stones. The decisions they make about spending priorities and service provision fundamentally influence people’s lives.

Indeed, national government may have put the money in, but it is local government which will have to deliver. Just as Tories and Liberal Democrats have opposed change at a national level, so too locally they see their job as to wreak havoc and prevent Labour achieving its aims. It would be a tragedy, having won the battle nationally for investment and reform of public services, to see that momentum buried at a local level, but this is a real possibility.

It is not just the key services that will suffer if Labour doesn’t win. In areas such as Waltham Forest, where I am a candidate, the neighbourhood renewal scheme is starting to bring real resources to help tackle the deprivation that has dogged this part of London for years. Nationally, both the Liberals and the Tories have always opposed it and the story is the same at a local level. Core parts of our regeneration strategy for Waltham Forest such as a brand new library and ‘healthy living’ centre, improved transport links and a new arts centre have all been opposed by other parties. This is not because they disagree with them per se, but because they are Labour projects – yet they will bring real improvements to the quality of life in the borough. Without Labour in local government, Tories and Liberals will use it as a way of punishing the electorate for voting for us. To me the biggest threat to social justice is not from apathy, but from the damage opposition councillors will do if they get elected. That’s why I’m standing – because local government is too important to be left to anyone but Labour.

Stella Creasy

My name is Chris Underwood and I am involved in politics. What a statement. Unusual enough for anyone to own up to, but add my age, 25, and it becomes all the more unheard of. With disengagement rife among younger generations, membership of all political parties is diminishing – however dishonestly one of them in particular reports it. Young activists are, in our party, a dying breed – not something for the ‘people’s movement’ to be proud of.

So why decide, as a young person, to put yourself forward, therefore becoming a ‘minority’ candidate? I joined the party in the early ‘90s on Teesside, an area that suffered some of the worst excesses of Margaret Thatcher’s crusades against society. It has yet to recover. I now live in Finchley and Golders Green, an area which in 2001 returned a Labour MP for the second time in Thatcher’s old stomping ground. And now, with those same convictions of society that unite our movement, I seek to represent a ward in Labour-led Barnet. It is one of the most deprived in London, one of many pockets of deprivation across the city in otherwise affluent boroughs. If elected, it will be the first chance I have had to put Labour’s values into action – in person.

So how do you become a candidate? I don’t think I will ever forget the selection meeting. Twice postponed because of an inquorate turnout of the membership, I eventually faced the local party – all four of them – with the CLP executive committee to make up the numbers. Huddled in a cold kitchen, the five of us prospective candidates waited to be called in turn to face the music – and set out our stall for the three places to be had. At around quarter to 11 on a Friday night the chair entered the kitchen-of-suffering to inform us of the result. I was third on the list.

On a walkabout of the ward the Saturday after selection, the enormity of what I had let myself in for began – it hasn’t finished – to sink in. What am I going to do about the burnt out car in front of that family’s house? How am I going to stop the vandalism that keeps the vulnerable indoors and threatens the very community itself? And while the local Tories try to generate as much fear and apathy as possible – just as they did last June – how am I to convince local people that 2 May actually matters at all?

There are no straightforward answers – but there is one straightforward conclusion: local government matters – in some cases more than national. Since that fateful evening, party members and I have been out canvassing, delivering, knocking and speaking. It is not easy. But it is worthwhile. Perhaps one day, I’ll be able to count on more than two hands the number of other younger members I know who think so, too, and stand themselves.

Chris Underwood

Handing out flyers about pigeon mess outside a railway station on a cold February night isn’t exactly an appealing way to spend your evenings. But in terms of the local election campaign in Wandsworth, it’s certainly not one of the worst things I’ve found myself getting up to in the line of duty. In the supposedly ‘brighter borough’, which Tories still hail as their flagship council, there is certainly no room for complacency in marginal seats, such as Earlsfield, the ward in which I am a candidate.

After initially wavering for a good few months before finally deciding to take the plunge, I found the selection process fairly arbitrary. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the rag-bag collection of local members, tired after a day at work, some dragged out at the last minute to make up the quorum and hardly enthused by the prospect of sitting through a selection meeting. It didn’t feel like a particularly fair or sensible way to select quality candidates capable of making a strong contribution to the Labour group over the next four years.

However, the Labour Party in Wandsworth has at least succeeded in selecting a good proportion of both young and female candidates in safe and marginal seats, thanks partly to the insistence of our local government committee that the short lists contain at least three women and also because of the persuasive skills of certain individuals.

Wandsworth council is the traditional breeding ground for young Tory rightwing proteges, with Adrian Flook, Christopher Chope and Peter Ainsworth being just a few examples. That’s why it is even more crucial that Labour fights back hard. The attitude of the council to disadvantaged communities in Wandsworth is despicable. The council’s appalling record on affordable housing, maintenance on estates, recycling, flytipping and removal of abandoned cars illustrates this attitude.

The anger we have encountered towards the Tories’ blatant disinterest in the people they are there to serve is hopefully something that will be channeled into votes for Labour on 2 May. But for me that means a lot more door-knocking, leafleting, balloon-blowing, petitioning and, inevitably, flyering on cold nights outside Earlsfield station over the coming weeks.

Sophie Livingstone