Christmas is coming and so is a general election. Brent residents will have to add voting to their Christmas list – the first time the country has gone to the polls in December in nearly a century.

Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol tells the famous story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a penny-pinching businessman who is unkind to others and hates Christmas.

Residents have had to deal with severe cuts everyday not just for Christmas after the Tories and the Liberal Democrats introduced austerity in 2010. Everyone in the borough has been feeling the impact for almost a decade as local services and community facilities are either stopped or abolished.

According to the National Audit Office, police funding is down by 19 per cent since 2010. The number of police officers have also fallen by around 20,000. As a result, Brent has become a knife crime "hotspot".

There have also been cuts to the NHS. Our hospitals have experienced the slowest spending growth since the health service was started. And will Boris Johnson sell-out the NHS to get a trade deal with Donald Trump?

Although the focus continues to be about getting Brexit done, Brent needs to be better for our families and our community.

Labour has pledged to create 400,000 new jobs through its green jobs revolution, a real living wage of £10 per hour as well as increasing funding for the NHS. There will also be free school meals for all school children while ensuring all pensioners continue to receive the winter fuel allowance and free TV licences and bus passes.