A leading councillor has been selected to contest the Enfield Southgate parliamentary constituency for Labour in the 2015 general election.

Bambos Charalambous, Enfield Council’s cabinet member for culture, leisure, youth and localism, was voted by party members to take the fight to Enfield Southgate MP David Burrowes at a meeting of the Enfield Southgate Constituency Labour Party at the at Southgate College, in High Street, on Saturday.

Following his selection by over 270 party members, Mr Charalambous, who currently represents Palmers Green, said his election campaign would focus on jobs, housing and opportunities for young people.

“Young people have really suffered under this government, while most people have seen the costs of living rise dramatically,” he said.

“I believe that people have seen what the Tories are really like in government and that the Labour Party is genuinely different.

“The lives of ordinary people have been adversely affected and people need to be made aware of that and we need to take up the fight for them. From Ladderswood all the way to Hadley Wood, we are going to target every area.”

It is the second time that Mr Charalambous will be contesting the seat. In 2010 he was defeated by Mr Burrowes by 7,626 votes, but he said this time things were going to be different.

He added: “I think the Labour Party is in a very different position and has a different message compared to 2010, a much more positive one. I can’t wait to take the fight to David Burrowes.”

In what was described by Labour insiders as a “close contest”, the Palmers Green councillor trumped his main rival Ibrahim Dogus, fundraiser for the Enfield Southgate Labour party. The other candidates were Lynda Rice, councillor in Barking and Dagenham, and Chingford-based Julia Jaye Charles, chief executive and founder of the Equalities National Council, an organisation which acts on behalf of disabled people and carers from black and minority ethnic communities.

According to the book Greek Cypriots Worldwide a directory of who’s who Bambos Charalambous is born in London parents from Kalo Chorio and Fasoulla in Cyprus. Bambos attended Chace Boys School then Tottenham College, Universities of North London, South Bank and Liverpool. He is a qualified solicitor and his hobbies are football, , reading, politics, current affairs, cinema, the arts and walking.

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