From actor to mayor: Banging the drum for culture

Actor and writer

It was extremely hard to get started as an actor. I’d done a drama degree at Loughborough Uni but, without an agent and not knowing anyone, the first step was to get an Equity card.

In those days, you had to already have work to get a card, and you couldn’t get good jobs without it. So actors found innovative ways around this, creating shows to gain the required number of contracts for a card. I did a schools show in schools about road safety. And I have to say, Countess Crashbarrier was a rich and complex character, made even more so by the traffic cone on her head!

I joined an actors’ co-op where I learnt a great deal about the industry, getting my big break in the late 1980s playing Sandra the clumsy waitress in David Nobbs’ series A Bit of a Do. I was raw and inexperienced, so working with the likes of David Jason, Gwen Taylor and David Thewlis was an extraordinary masterclass in TV acting.

This exposure enabled me to have a fantastic career for over three decades, working with amazing people, travelling the world and having a creative life. That said, raising children as two freelancers – my husband at the time was a TV director – always worrying about where the next job was coming from, was a constant, often underestimated pressure. Creatives are gig-economy workers. Job to job, hand to mouth.

So while I’ve now officially hung up my acting boots, it was a real treat recently to be offered a cameo in Robert Webb’s new series High Hoops, filmed in my neck of the woods, playing a Mayor! No acting required…

Member of Parliament

I’ve been a member of the Labour Party for years. Growing up, I always knew who had the interests of working people at the heart of their policies. And everything I have achieved to date was because, as a working-class girl growing up without much money and knowing no one who could give me a leg-up, I could flourish due to decisions made by Labour.

Council houses, free school meals, free and excellent education, free libraries, the dole. And I used my TV presence to support candidates and councillors during elections, to help draw campaigners and press to events.

That’s when I met Jo Cox; campaigning to be the MP for Batley and Spen. We became friends and I joined her campaign to keep libraries open. After her tragic murder in 2016, I was elected as the MP for her former constituency. I was determined to do her proud.

Acting served me well walking into parliament as a politician that first time, not knowing anyone or anything. ‘Fake it till you make it’ was my moto, learning fast from others around me. My passion and advocacy for the creative industries continued, and I was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for DCMS then Shadow Minister for Cultural Industries.

When the pandemic struck it was an incredibly difficult time for the sector: the first to close, the last to open and perhaps the least understood. So it was a privilege to be the champion for freelancers and creatives across the country. I’m proud that we managed to get flexibilities to the SEISS (Self-Employment Income Support Scheme), so more could get government support.

Mayor of West Yorkshire

In 2021, I was elected West Yorkshire’s first Metro Mayor, following the region’s historic devolution deal. The first female Metro Mayor in the country. Having served as an opposition MP and a shadow minister, I relished the opportunity to finally have the power and money to transform lives for the better.

Since the election, we’ve kickstarted a mass transit programme for the region, we’ve helped build thousands of affordable, sustainable homes, with more in the pipeline. We’ve prioritised violence against women and girls, and recruited hundreds of new police officers and staff. We are the first region outside London to introduce a cap on bus fares, bringing buses back under public control.

But I also understand the power of culture to transform lives and regenerate communities. With that in mind, I’ve made creative industries a key area for investment, with over £13 million of new funding. Culture isn’t just a ‘nice to have’ – the North’s creative industries is a growing sector, employing over 100,000 people and contributing over £10 billion a year to the UK economy, with the potential to add billions more.

We’re boosting skills to match the growing number of opportunities and we’re attracting the likes of EMI, Channel 4 and The Brit School to locate here. We’re a force to be reckoned with, and the upcoming Bradford UK City of Culture 2025 is going to show the world everything we’ve got to offer.

But this is just the beginning. Devolution is the new normal, and ‘devolution by default’ is this government’s mission statement. I will be working closely with ministers to deliver even better outcomes for the people of West Yorkshire, while continuing to bang the drum for culture.

Working with Mayors across the North and partners such as the RSA, the BBC, ACE, universities and arts leaders, we can be greater than the sum of our parts. We will deliver our shared mission of One Creative North to revolutionise and finally rebalance the growth in our sector across the whole country.