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.

Workers Revolutionary Party candidate Jonty Leff explains why he thinks he is the best person for the job in Walthamstow.

1) I am concerned that young people are hit the hardest. They either have to find huge £9,000 fees to go to university, or face zero hour contact jobs or, in some circumstances, are expected to work for nothing. Also the Education Maintenance Allowance has gone stopping many young people continuing at college. All these attacks are because the government is more concerned with keeping the banks afloat and this means taking this money from the working class. Meanwhile it is the rich that are benefiting – and getting richer.

2) We see greedy speculators taking over council homes and building expensive apartments while tenants are evicted. We see bankers get huge bonuses while people’s wages are cut. We also see NHS executives getting £640,00 wages while doctors, nurses and health workers live on a basic wage and are only promised a measly increase of 1%.

3) We are living in the midst of the biggest crisis ever of this capitalist system and they have no solution to it. For the working class they promise £30 billion more cuts for a start. This will devastate people’s lives, driving us back to Victorian days with no welfare state. The government try to put the blame on immigrants for these problems but it is the government and its bankrupt capitalist system that is to blame. That is why I say end all immigration controls and restrictions! Asylum seekers and refugees have every right to come to the UK and seek a better life.

4) I believe the only answer to this crisis is to get rid of the capitalist system that is only producing misery, wars, and poverty. I will fight for a workers government that will carry out a socialist planned economy. This will immediately nationalise the banks and big monopolies and then use this great wealth for people’s needs, not for profit.

5) We need a million new council homes, to build more schools, re-open hospitals and expand them, re-open GP surgeries, libraries and youth facilities. This is the only way ordinary people will have a decent life.