ANGELA RAYNER

To give every child a fair chance to succeed, we need to give them the best possible start in life. For far too many that isn't happening.

Every one called me scruffy, a scratter, that's what they used to call me. I was known as that. Scratter was the nickname.

I don't pronounce all my words exactly how they do on the BBC. I am who I am.

My mum didn't understand that education was an important thing. She couldn't do my homework with me. I was helping her read stuff. She once brought shaving soap thinking it was whipped cream.

At 16, out of school and pregnant, my own life could have been written off. It was the help I had from some of the then Labour government's policies such as Sure Start that turned it around.

My brother and sister are smarter than me. But I'm the most successful because I've been given opportunities that they never had.

School, for me, was not a place where you went to be educated, but a place where you got away from your parents for a couple of hours while they got some respite from you, and where you were able to see your mates.

If you want to underestimate me because I speak like a Mancunian, like the people I grew up with, then so be it at your peril.

I'm the only member of the house, who at age 16, and pregnant, was told in no uncertain terms, I'd never amount to anything.

Mental health is a case study in Tory failure.

I'm a mum and I hate the thought of any child going a whole day at school without a healthy meal.

I've always been the girl who can't sit on her hands. If there's a pink elephant in the room, I'll identify it and say it.

As a young single mum struggling to get by, I didn't get to go to university, but that level of debt would have been unimaginable.

My kids live in a different environment than I did as a child. They've got privileges I didn't have as a child, but they have disadvantages. They don't see their mum as much. They see the threats that one gets. They live in a house where they've got panic buttons, and I've had to teach them about safety.

The privileged have become more wealthy, while people from disadvantaged backgrounds have had their opportunities to get on and move up closed off. That's the Tory way.

You'd be surprised how many politicians have a working class background but they get it beaten out of them.

The Tories should treat working families with more respect.

No deal wouldn't return sovereignty to the U.K., it would make us dependent on a sweetheart deal with Donald Trump.

I never got hugged as child.

Any success I have had is thanks to Labour governments that provided the council house, minimum wage, tax credits and Sure Start children's centre that enabled me to achieve it.

I cannot be clearer about this. I am not in politics, let alone Labour's shadow cabinet, to keep things as they are.

You never, ever give up the chance to change things, ever, no matter how hard it is. If you're elected, and have got the opportunity to make a difference, you take it.

I went to my local Sure Start centre, and they put me on a parenting course. I learned things that might seem simple - that it was important to hug and love your child, and read to them. This might seem obvious, but it wasn't to me at the time.

Some of the Tories say, 'She left school at 16, she doesn't have a university degree, what does she know about education?' I say, I may not have a degree - but I have a Masters in real life.

Growing up without love, without being cared for, might be the worst type of poverty.