Blyth parliamentary candidate and MP couple Ian and Maureen Levy entered politics 'for the same reasons'

Constituency boundary changes mean Blyth Valley will be split at the next election, forming part of two new constituencies. Ian was chosen as the Conservative candidate in Cramlington and Killingworth, while Maureen will run for the Tories in Blyth and Ashington.

Ian said: “It was very much a head or a heart, but two thirds of my constituency currently goes into the Cramlington and Killingworth seat, so you have got to go with where the majority of your constituents go as the sitting MP.”

The couple are hoping to win both seats but Maureen, running against the current Wansbeck MP, Labour’s Ian Lavery, said that “we will celebrate” together if only one prevails.

She said: “We both got into politics at the same time for the same reasons. While I was very happy for Ian to be the front man and I would just sit behind the scenes, the boundary changes meant it did not work that way anymore.”

Ian added: “I think that whoever did not get in would have an awful lot to offer in different areas because of the experiences we have had.”

Maureen becoming an MP “had never been part of the plan.” She said: “If we had a really good candidate come forward I would have stood with them.

"I personally did not feel that we had that, if I am honest.”

It was a similar impulse that led to Ian running for Parliament, with the couple left frustrated by the 2015 election.

Maureen said: “Fast forward a little bit to 2016 and Ian is still winging and moaning. One night, I have had enough and I say ‘Ian, shut up or do something about it’.”

Ian, then a healthcare assistant on a mental health ward at St Nicholas Hospital in Gosforth, wrote to Prime Minister David Cameron and was assessed as a candidate.

He was nominated to stand in 2017 and despite “a minuscule budget, £500,” almost doubled the Tory vote share in Blyth Valley, but remained a distant second to Labour.

For the 2019 election, Ian went “all out” to win the seat and did so by 712 votes.

Maureen helped Ian to run his office until permanent staff joined and now works part time for Paul Howell, the Conservative MP for Sedgefield, while continuing to support Ian’s work.

Prior to that, she had no involvement in politics. She said: “My first job was for a local solicitors in Blyth. I then went to the Halifax for a little while and did financial and mortgage advice.”

She has also worked selling houses and valuing land for developers, for a credit union, and before 2019 worked with older people at North Tyneside Council.

The couple first met in Blyth aged seven. Ian said: “I got sent to dancing lessons with my sister and Maureen was my dancing partner. We then went out with each other when we were 17 for about two years.”

They went their separate ways but got back together when they were 29, got married, and now have two children.