Hello and welcome to the political party. Today's guest is Sharma Tatler who was

Labour's candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green so you will know how hotly

contested that seat was in Duncan Smith held his seat it was very very close and labor could have won it

There was of course a lot of coverage of this seat because Pfizer Shaheen stood as an independent.

And we talk about all this with Sharma,

and this is just such a candid account

of what it's like, what it was like for her

to stand in that seat, to deal with the politics that were coming out out

from left and right, and just the strength of character she's got and the grace to rise above things that really would have just put

anyone else off from standing as the Labour candidate in that seat.

Sharma is so impressive and has an amazing record as a councillor,

a record that was distorted and weaponised against him.

This really is part of that wider story of what

happened in some of the seats in this general election, the intimidation of

candidates, a lot of whom stood for the Labour Party, Rosie Duffield, Jess Phillips,

West Streeting, Jonathan Ashworth, even in Kieostarmacy, and Sharma really suffered a lot of that herself and obviously then didn't emerge

victorious but this isn't just I mean we really go into detail on the whole campaign

and what it was like for her and the things she had to put up with.

But there are positives as well. I mean, we talk about those and about politics and her hope and her life and her philosophy on life.

She's such a deep person and has handled this remarkably well.

So, I mean, there's been a bit of coverage of this stuff. I think there's more to come because I don't think it's had the coverage that it deserves

the intimidation of candidates in this way and it feels like that is getting worse. In fact it is getting worse.

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