The Guardian Series has asked each parliamentary candidate to list five reasons why they should become an MP at the General Election on May 7.

Here the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green, Leonard Hockey, explains why you should vote for him.

1.End cuts and austerity - For a democratic socialist society run in the interests of the millions not the billionaires – People should vote for me as the only representative in Chingford and Woodford Green prepared to tell the truth that austerity and cuts are not inevitable but are political choices.

They are ones made in the interests of the 1 per cent, the billionaires, the super-rich and the bankers whose greed crashed the economy and who continue to enrich themselves at our expense while our vital public services are plundered.

I will campaign to end this through taxing the rich and through popular democratic public ownership.

2. Trade union rights to fight low pay though a £10 an hour minimum wage now and scrapping of zero hour contracts.  A million young people are subject to appalling exploitation and uncertainty through these. I stand shoulder to shoulder with them. As an active NHS trade union organiser I am daily involved in supporting workers and ensuring through campaigning, that these are replaced by permanent contracts that pay the rate for the job.

A vote for me will be a vote to end the scandal of slave labour bosses being subsidised to the tune of billions in our taxes through in work benefits to workers who cannot live on their poverty pay. Open the books and let’s see what profits they have. And if they can’t pay £10 minimum per hour then nationalise them with compensation only on the basis of proven need. Repeal the anti-union laws – TUSC stands for the freedom for workers to organise in their unions against injustice and where necessary and as our forebears had to, to break bad laws that keep workers poor and oppressed.

3.A mass council home building programme and immediate introduction of rent controls. In the five years that this government has been in power house prices have risen by 50, making home ownership increasingly unaffordable for the majority. In London the average age of a first time buyer is now 52! Younger people face a future of expensive private-rented, insecure and often substandard housing. I will if elected campaign for the immediate introduction of rent controls, to ensure fair rents, and for a mass building programme of high-quality, affordable council housing.

4.Scrap student fees. Free education as a right for all. No to academies and 'free schools'. I will campaign with teachers unions and students for good, free education for all, under democratic local authority control; student grants not fees.

5. For democratic public ownership of our NHS, railways, public services, utilities and banks. PFI has to be scrapped and is particularly destabilising our NHS – it further removes democratic control from those who work in and rely on its services. Big business has to be kicked out of healthcare and the pharmaceutical and medical equipment supply industries nationalised and integrated into a massively expanded NHS. The mainstream politicians and the capitalists they represent talk of the ‘problem’ of us living longer; but this ought to be celebrated in any rationally planned, humane society. Under capitalism however, they have no use for people unless they are fodder for profiteering. It is only through democratic public ownership of the utilities, rail and public service together with the banks that society will ensure the necessary framework within which basic human need will not merely just be met, but that dignity and enduring fulfilment in life can be assured.

East London and West Essex Guardian Series:  

Mr Hockey, a porter at Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, during a protest against plans to cuts cleaners hours and pay in 2012.