26th February 2010: 'Have Your Say' Jean Samuel

Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Canterbury and Whitstable addresses ‘Making Politics Matter’

Jean Samuel, Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Canterbury and Whitstable will give a public talk on Friday 26 February, 7pm as part of the Making Politics Matter initiative at Canterbury Chris Church University. Jean Samuel’s talk is entitled:


'Rights and Benefits of holding Personal Data– Balancing the Individual and Society'


From our DNA to our health records; from our credit rating to our party going the capacity to record, store use and share personal data is phenomenal. The mechanisms for regulating it lag behind.

Are you in control of your personal data?

Why would you ever share it - it's yours isn't it?

But if it can help you and others, why would you not?



Dr David Bates, Programme Director of Politics and International Relations at the University said: ‘We are delighted that Jean Samuel will be giving this talk at Making Politics Matter. This is clearly one of the most topical and contentious issues of our time – we look forward to hearing Jean Samuel’s views, and crucially, the views of the public.’


The event will begin at 7pm on Friday 26 February Old Sessions House, Longport, Canterbury Campus.


About Jean Samuel
Jean is Labour’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate and is looking forward to fighting the seat in the next General Election.
She has lived in Whitstable with her husband since 1989 and her three children attended the local state primary school. Two are now in secondary education in Canterbury and the eldest is at university. Jean’s mother shared the family home until her recent death.
Jean has always worked, full or part time, and appreciates the challenges of being a good Mum, getting the best from child care while delivering at work. Jean has been school governor at three schools.
She started her career in the BBC’s archives in London then moved to work at Pfizer in Sandwich. More recently she has set up her own business as an Interim Manager. She is currently working for Schering-Plough She has also been Executive Director of a small local company specialising in information management.
Jean has been an active member of the Labour Party for over 20 years and at the BBC was ‘shop steward’ for her union branch and was active at Union conferences.
Jean’s late father was in the RAF for many years and she grew up in forces’ housing and her family routinely moved around the UK and she went to six different schools. The fifth of six children, she was a beneficiary of school meals, a state education and, later, a University grant. As a new member of the work force in London in the 1980s she lived in and helped run a Housing Co-operative in Deptford where housing issues sharpened her growing sense of social justice and what happens when people do not know their rights.
This background drives her political philosophy of balancing rights with responsibilities while supporting people to succeed by hard work and on merit. She is committed to Labour's goal ' to put power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many, not the few.'