Candy Atherton

Labour MP Falmouth and Camborne

Date of birth

21 September 1955

Political profile

Candy Atherton is a former Labour Party press officer and journalist, who unseated Sebastian Coe at the 1997 election and increased her majority in 2001.

The first person to be selected as a candidate from an all-woman shortlist, as an MP she has mainly campaigned on employment and economic issues.

Ms Atherton had faced accusations of opportunism having come from London, where she was an Islington councillor, to fight the South West seat.

Nonetheless, she has proved to be a firm defender of local interests.

She fought a high profile campaign in defence of Cornwall's last surviving tin mine, which was in her constituency.

Contact

Commons office: 020 7219 4094

[e-mail]