Josh Fenton-Glynn: meet the new Calder Valley MP who is in Parliament with his science teacher

The Calderdale councillor stood in 2015, 2017 and 2019, before finally being elected in July in the constituency “where I was born and brought up and where I now raise my own family”.

He describes his children lightheartedly as Calder Valley’s “two smallest leaf letters and door knockers”. 

Josh comes from a political family, and his great-great-grandfather John Hughes was the agent to a Labour MP in the 1922 general election.

Before moving into politics he worked for charities, such as Oxfam and Child Poverty Action Group, and unions, like USDAW and the PCS Union.

“When I look at the areas I focus on in my career,” he says, “it’s the less glamorous topics that draw me … looking at how the welfare system can alleviate poverty.”

Calder Valley has voted with the government in every election since its creation in 1983, and Josh won with an almost 9,000 vote majority.

And he found a friendly face on his first day in Parliament, his former science teacher at Calder High School Allison Gardner.

Allison is the new MP for Stoke-on-Trent South and part of the Labour wave elected in the landslide.

He said: “Mrs Gardner was one of my most fun teachers. 

“I don’t think either of us imagined that years later we’d both be part of a new intake of fantastic Labour MPs.”

While Allison told the House magazine: “He still calls me ‘Miss’ just out of sheer devilment.”