Green Judy Maciejowska is standing for election in the Torridge and Tavistock constituency. 

Judy, who lives on a smallholding with her husband on the Bere peninsula, has been a member of the Green Party since 1983. 

She ran the campaign which got Caroline Lucas elected as the first Green MP in the country, in Brighton Pavilion, in 2010. 

Judy, who moved to Devon in 2011, is already a councillor on Bere Ferrers Parish Council and the local Green Party coordinator.

Locally, the Greens now have four councillors on West Devon Borough Council. Nationally they hope to increase their number of MPs from one to four, with Bristol Central on the list. Here in Devon there is no expectation to win, but Judy says it is important to stand.

“We are feeling very hopeful because we have done so much better in recent local and by-elections and we know that people in the area in Torridge and Tavistock are desperate for change. It is about giving people on alternative to the same old, same old, because with the best will in the world, Labour is not that different from the Conservatives at the moment.”

“There is such a big big gap between people with lots of money and people in work who are struggling professionals with a couple of children who can’t make ends meet. We have been saying for a long time that we should be taxing the wealthy. Rishi Sunak is one of the wealthiest people in the country and it is up there saying he feels our pain. No he doesn’t.”

She said the Greens had ideas to make the water companies clean up the rivers and seas, to build new affordable homes and protect the NHS from creeping privatisation. Closer to home, she said she wanted to help agriculture ‘green up’.

“We must give more support to our farming community so they can farm in a way that doesn’t damage our biodiversity. I don’t want to knock our farmers, they do a great job and they work damn hard and they feed us. An awful lot of them really do care and it is important that we acknowledge that.”