An ulster beauty queen is going to the polls aiming to inflict more election misery on Gordon Brown.
The current Miss Great Britain, Gemma Garrett, is standing in the pivotal Crewe by-election in a bid to become Westminster's most glamourous MP.
She has gone head-to-head with Labour's Tamsin Dunwoody, whose mother, Gwyneth Dunwoody, triggered the by-election with her death at the age of 77.
It's been a bruising and dirty campaign for the two main parties, with Gemma, 26, pledging to "put beauty back into politics" if she wins the vacant seat.
And the buxom Belfast blonde admitted she's also had her feelings hurt in the rough-and-tumble of the political arena.
"I'm exhausted, and everyone from the other parties has been so rude to me," she said from her campaign office in the working-class Cheshire constituency.
"One campaigner for Dunwoody said I was a disgrace to Britain, and asked if I could even spell Britain. If I heard any of my campaign team had been as rude, I'd die.
"The only people who seem to have changed their mind about me and seen that I'm not a joke are the people of Crewe. A lot of them have approached me and said I stand for something really positive."
Her policies focus on improving conditions for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan – but she has been slammed for failing to know major political figures when quizzed by the Press.
Via newsletter.co.uk
Gemma Garrett is sexing up the stuffy world of politics in her bid to become Britain’s newest MP.
And today Miss Great Britain Gemma unveils her eye-popping manifesto for change.
The 26-year-old blonde has been sneered at by strait-laced campaigners branding her a bimbo.
But Gemma is determined to prove she’s got beauty, brains – and policies – as she hits the campaign trail ahead of Thursday’s by-election in Crewe and Nantwich.
The Belfast beauty’s main aim is to boost the paltry wages for British soldiers risking their lives every day for their country.
It’s an issue particularly close to Gemma’s heart as two of her cousins – aged just 19 and 22 – are serving soldiers.
She says: “I’m campaigning on lots of different issues but the main one is about pay for British troops.
“They should be on a premium salary when they’re in war zones and away from their families, even when they’re in Northern Ireland.
“Instead they are scraping by on barely more than the minimum wage.
“This issue is especially important to me as I have two cousins who are soldiers, one serving in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
“I know first-hand how poor the pay is – when they are risking their lives to serve their country – and it’s something I feel really passionately about.
“Just like many other families across Britain we worry about our lads out there and I feel it’s only right they should be well compensated.”
The caring babe is also determined to improve conditions for working and single mothers, who struggle to pay for childcare and hold down a job.
“I want the cost of childcare to be tax deductible,” says Gemma. “My sister, who’s a mum, finds it so hard. By the time she has paid the childminder or nursery fees, is there any point in her going to work?”
Sexy Gemma is standing for the newly-formed Beauties For Britain party and wants to wipe out politics’ sleazy image.
To those who dismiss Gemma’s bid for Parliament in the Cheshire seat as a joke or publicity stunt, she has this to say: “I want people to know I am campaigning on proper politics and real issues.
“It drives me mad how much people stereotype. Just because you’re a beauty queen people assume you’re thick – but I am determined to put them straight.
“I don’t expect to win but what I want more than anything is to put my issues out there. Hopefully other people will take them on board.”
Gemma was appalled to discover how many people in their teens and twenties don’t vote and haven’t even bothered to register for the right to vote.
She says: “I want to make politics more exciting and sexy. There are so many people who don’t vote because they find it all so boring.
“I went up to Crewe and visited some bars and nightclubs to talk to people aged 18 to 30 about my campaign. I was talking to this 27-year-old guy. He’d never voted and his name wasn’t even on the electoral roll.
“It made me realise how lots of people don’t have any interest in politics and I want to change that.
“People have to realise they can’t complain about what’s wrong with the country if they don’t vote in the first place.”
But Gemma is already finding herself caught up in the dog-eat-dog world of politics.
“I was verbally attacked in the street by a Labour campaigner,” says shocked Gemma.
“It was an elderly woman. She shouted at me: ‘Do you even know how to spell Britain?’ I couldn’t believe it.
“I just walked away even though I was quite angry about it. I thought that was the best way for an ambassador for Britain to behave.”
Via dailystar.co.uk
