{"id":792102,"date":"2026-02-27T08:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/792102\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T08:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:05:13","slug":"from-plumber-to-parliament-hannah-spencer-is-britains-newest-mp-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/792102\/","title":{"rendered":"From plumber to parliament, Hannah Spencer is Britain\u2019s newest MP \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cPeople already know how much we care about the climate crisis and the environment,\u201d Spencer told POLITICO in February. Instead, the Greens are hoping to combine their climate credentials with wider topics, \u201clinking it to other things we really care about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I fixed homes for a living\u2019<\/p>\n

When Spencer was announced as the Green Party\u2019s candidate, her working class backstory was core to her messaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t go to university to study politics,\u201d she said at the party\u2019s campaign launch last month<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m a plumber here in Manchester. I fixed homes for a living. I spend my days in people\u2019s kitchens, in their bathrooms, and their front rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Green Party leader Zack Polanski on the campaign trail with Hannah Spencer earlier this month. Spencer\u2019s working-class backstory was core to her messaging. | Danny Lawson\/PA Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Spencer left school at 16 \u2014 a far cry from a university-dominated Commons \u2014 and took an apprenticeship, eventually setting up her own business: Hannah\u2019s Household Plumbing.\u00a0 Responding to questions about the authenticity of her working class roots during the campaign, she told the New Statesman<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019ve been a plumber for nearly 20 years. What do they want, to see a toilet I\u2019ve fixed?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to keep Westminster for a small club of posh boys that all went to the same schools or studied at Oxbridge,\u201d she argued. \u201cThat\u2019s why things have been run into the ground \u2013 we\u2019ve had too many politicians that don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to graft.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer also qualified as a gas engineer and plasterer \u2014 the latter while the by-election campaign was in full flow. The owner of four greyhounds, Spencer took the dogs \u2014 Olive,\u00a0Forrest,\u00a0Judy\u00a0and\u00a0Will \u2014 on the campaign trail, and has<\/a> spoken about the impact of campaigning against dog racing on her politics. \u201cI\u2019d turn up and hand out leaflets, kindly explaining but also listening to people,\u201d she told the Manchester Evening News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cPeople already know how much we care about the climate crisis and the environment,\u201d Spencer told POLITICO in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,1193,33,393,728,4884,730,11524,807,1198,839,6657,384,1144,6658,2822,712,1201,16,15,1764,1202],"class_list":["post-792102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-britain","tag-british-politics","tag-elections","tag-england","tag-environment","tag-great-britain","tag-india","tag-inequality","tag-keir-starmer","tag-kemi-badenoch","tag-middle-east","tag-migration","tag-nigel-farage","tag-northern-ireland","tag-refugees","tag-regions-cohesion","tag-scotland","tag-trade","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales","tag-westminster-bubble"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116141563921666560","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}