STEWART PATERSON

Political Correspondent

IN the early morning of June 9, Paul Sweeney pulled off an unexpected election victory snatching back Glasgow North East for Labour.

Four weeks later the young former shipyard employee is standing up in the House of Commons delivering a put down to Theresa May and challenging her on Jobcentre cuts in Glasgow.

In the space of a month Mr Sweeney had gone from fighting a campaign few seriously expected he would win, including himself, to a place in Labour’s UK shadow ministerial team under Jeremy Corbyn.

He became a member of the Labour and Co-operative party at Glasgow University where he says the debating society in the University Union has proven helpful.

He was first involved in campaign politics in 2009 as a student on Labour candidate William Bain’s by-election campaign.

Now less than eight years later he is the MP for the area.

On his election, he didn’t think he could win the seat back given the majority Anne McLaughlin won for the SNP just two years earlier.

He said: “I didn’t see it coming. We were 9,200 votes behind a hell of a mountain to climb but my agent always said we had a chance.”

But it wasn’t until election night that he realised it could be won.

A distrust of the Tories has shaped his political upbringing through school in Bishopbriggs, Glasgow University and then work.

He said: “I was given that feeling from a very young age that the Tories were always out to punish my area and my people. Either that they didn’t care about it or they were actively out to sabotage things.”

His politics come from growing up with family roots in the north of Glasgow and a strong trade union background.

He witnessed the decline in communities where family lived and experienced his dad being made redundant from the same Clyde shipyards he would later work in on BAE’s graduate scheme in a strategic role, before moving to Scottish Enterprise.

He said his interest is in improving communities, creating spaces that people want to live in with good facilities and an attractive build environment.

Mr Sweeney said: “The most radical thing that has happened in the last 20 years in Glasgow has been the housing stock transfer and the debt write off. The difference is plain to see with the transformation and it’s a lot safer.”

In the north east he says there is still too much derelict land with most of the population living within a few hundred metres of derelict land.

The MP feels that affects how people feel about their community.

He said: “People begin to think why should I care about it why should I have a stake in it.”

As one of seven Glasgow MPs but the only Labour member representing the city at Westminster he said he is looking to work with SNP members on issues where they have common ground.

He said while there are obvious disagreements with the other six MPs he is hoping a “Team Glasgow” approach can be taken on issues where there is agreement.

He has already spoken on the Jobcentre cuts in the chamber and in a debate where all the Glasgow MPs challenged the DWP minister.

He is looking to work with another city MP on a heritage issue they have a shared interest on.

He said: “The constitutional side has dominated politics to the detriment of other policy areas but we actually find on most other issues there is a social democratic consensus among many of us.”

He is also backing fellow city MP, Stewart McDonald, in his bid to ban unpaid trail shifts.

Interests he hopes to pursue include better transport links within Glasgow and to and from Glasgow.

He is a strong supporter of bringing high speed rail north from Manchester to Glasgow.

Public transport linking the city’s communities also needs addressed he believes.

He said: “We need radical thinking about the transport infrastructure in Glasgow.”

One idea is for a north circular train tram route using old disused rail lines and on roads.

He said: “In those communities there is low car ownership and people rely on bus services to get about. These things affect quality of life and that’s the sort of issue I want to get action on.”

He worries Glasgow could be losing out to other cities like Manchester in investment because of a lack of co-ordinated planning.

His experience of debating at Glasgow University has, he said, been a good grounding for the rough and tumble of the House of Commons.

He said “I stood up at Prime Ministers Questions and the chamber fell silent it was deafening and you sense the MPs thinking ‘let’s see what you’ve got’.

What he had was a pointed jibe to unsettle Theresa May. Before asking his question he said the Prime Minister would know what it was like to have a job but without job security.

Previous Prime Ministers may have had a ready retort to make him wish he had never made the remark but Ms May didn’t and he had scored a point.

His baptism in the bearpit of the House of Commons was complete.

Next Week: David Linden Glasgow East.