I first learned the power of a Labour government to transform lives growing up in my hometown of Stockport.

We can't have children growing up feeling unloved - the price is too high for that.

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

My mother suffers mental health problems and has a learning deprivation.

When I met my wife, I was forty-six, and it was love at first sight. Every day, my love grew deeper as I found out about her family values, that her parents were still together, that she wanted kids. So we fell in love, got engaged, got married, and a month later, we were pregnant!

No parent is there forever. So I won't be here forever with these kids.

Although my family - parents and sister - all work in the personnel management business, their real passion is performing, amateur operatic societies and so on.

Even though my mom was talented and had a college degree, she lived in the era when the conventional wisdom in Dallas was that my dad worked, she was supposed to stay home and take care of the kids, and that was that. There really weren't other opportunities for her, and most of them were volunteer opportunities.