It is with much sadness that today I have stepped down as a Westminster City Councillor for Churchill Ward.

This is for personal reasons – primarily, family care responsibilities – and it has not been an easy decision, nor one which I have made lightly.

It has been an absolute honour and privilege to serve and represent the residents of Churchill Ward, to have been Shadow Cabinet Member for Arts, Culture & Leisure, and to be part of the brilliant, caring and hardworking Labour Group on Westminster City Council.

I want to thank all the residents, fellow councillors and council officers I have had the pleasure to meet, help and work with over these past three years. Churchill is a very special part of Westminster, full of wonderful people, and I will always be very grateful for having the opportunity to serve there, and for people’s kindness and support during my time as a councillor.

I am delighted that the Labour candidate in a Churchill Ward by-election will be local Churchill resident and brilliant campaigner Liza Begum. Liza led Walden House residents’ successful campaign to save their homes in the face of Grosvenor’s Cundy Street Quarter development – and I know that, if elected, she will be a tireless, compassionate councillor and a voice for all residents of Churchill Ward.

Life is a marathon, not a sprint – and so is the world of filmmaking. On the back of the brilliant The Queen’s Gambit, whose journey from book to Netflix took a mere 30 years, I wrote a two-part piece for Lucy V. Hay’s excellent screenwriting website Bang2Write about 12 films which took a long time to get from idea to script to screen – and the lessons we creatives can learn from the writer’s journey on each. Here’s part one (ft. Arrival, Get Out, Jojo Rabbit, Carol, Superbad, The Theory of Everything) and here’s part two (ft. A Quiet Place, One Night in Miami, Saving Mr Banks, The King’s Speech, Thelma & Louise, Bohemian Rhapsody). I hope it’s a helpful-slash-inspiring read for fellow writers and creatives!