Polly Billington

Polly Billington (born 1967) is a former BBC journalist who worked on the Today programme before becoming a special advisor to Ed Miliband. She was the media director for his successful bid in the 2010 Labour leadership election.[1] Billington was the Party's parliamentary candidate for Thurrock at the 2015 general election and a Labour Party official; she no longer works for Ed Miliband.

Education and journalism career

Billington took a postgraduate diploma in Broadcast Journalism at the department of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Central Lancashire in 1993.[2]

Billington was a BBC reporter for theToday programme, Newsbeat on Radio 1, News 24 and the Politics Show.

Labour Party official and candidate

She became a special adviser to Ed Miliband in 2007 when he was working on party policy and election strategy in the Cabinet Office[3] and according to The Daily Telegraph she was the 59th most influential person on the UK left in 2011.[4]

Billington sought to become a parliamentary candidate in February 2010, when she was shortlisted for the safe Labour seat of North Tyneside, but local candidate Mary Glindon was selected instead.[5] She was the media director for Ed Miliband's successful Labour leadership bid.[6] She is credited with honing his questions and replies to David Cameron at Prime Minister's Questions.[7]

In November 2011, Billington launched another bid to be selected as a Labour MP, this time in Thurrock.[8] This time she gained the nomination for a marginal seat. She was one of 15 Labour candidates each given financial support of £10,000 by Lord Matthew Oakeshott the former Liberal Democrat in January 2015.[9] However, she failed to win the close 3-way contest in Thurrock and came second.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, May 19, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.