HER experience of being elected via an all-women shortlist and her time spent in four different Shadow Cabinet positions means that Emily Thornberry is better placed than most to speak about a wide range of political issues.

On Thursday the 58-year-old visited Carlisle for a fundraising event aimed at raising funds for the upcoming local council elections. The trip to Carlisle - says the Shadow Foreign Secretary - was long in the pipeline.

Her last trip to Carlisle was a few years ago with her son and husband. She explained: “My son is up at university in Scotland so we drove up and we stopped in Carlisle. We went to the cathedral and it was lovely actually. A guide showed me round and I was saying ‘why is it this funny shape?’

“He said ‘it’s because it was looted so they could build the castle’. I said ‘that’s terrible’, but he said ‘not so much’. He took me round the side and showed me how part of the wall had been built from Hadrian’s Wall, so he said ‘what goes around comes around.’

“It seems like everybody just keeps moving the stones on basically. We had lunch in the centre of town and we kept looking up at that chimney. My son and my husband kept trying to spot it. It is very distinctive. If you ever see pictures of Carlisle, or you’re on the train, you’re always looking for the chimney. It’s lovely, I love it. I was here years ago because I got a table cloth, but I have no idea how old it is now.”

Alongside her duties in the Shadow Cabinet, Mrs Thornberry has served as the MP for Islington South and Finsbury since 2005, a seat she won via an all-female Labour shortlist. The idea has been used locally by the party and has been met some with resistance. Former Carlisle councillor Elsie Martlew quit as chair of the local Labour Party over the shortlists in January.

Despite the opposition, Mrs Thornberry thinks they are important. She said: “Last year we were celebrating 100 years since some women had the vote and women being allowed to stand for Parliament, but before Labour had all women shortlists we just used to have all-male shortlists all the time, we just used to have all these blokes coming down.

“Of course men can represent the public, but it shouldn’t just be them, we’ve got quite a lot to offer as well. We just couldn’t break the habit that we’d got into. There was a feeling that you had to look a certain way to be a politician. I lived in the east end when there was going to be an all-women shortlist and people started saying to me ‘Emily, why don’t you think of standing’

“All-women shortlists is not just about getting the party to think seriously about women, sometimes it is about getting the women to think seriously about themselves too. I hadn’t thought of standing for parliament before then, I don’t know why, there’s no reason why I couldn’t be just as good a politician as anybody else.”

The initiative has been tremendously important in changing the dynamic of the party, says the MP.

“Introducing all women shortlists has changed the culture of the Labour Party. It is true we’ve had arguments up and down the country about this, but you have to tell women that politicians means them and you have to ask them, then you probably have to ask them again.

“My mum was a local councillor and the way she was asked, was when my parents split up when I was seven and we had a fall into the safety net. We ended up in a council house, on benefits, a very hard life for a few years. As the kids got older and mum got back on her feet, she was involved in the Labour Party and one of the local leaders of the party said ‘Look Sally, the community has put a lot into you and your family, isn’t it time you put something back?’ You should stand for the council’.

“She said that she didn’t have time, but they asked her again and again and she was an outstandingly good councillor. We want to make sure the Labour Party represents the society outside, which does mean getting the gender balance sorted out.”

One of the first thing Emily says the Labour Party would do is to focus more on different areas of the country.

“The most important thing is to have a government that focusses on all areas of Britain, we are not just a party for London and the south east. We are a party for all nations of the United Kingdom, but all the regions as well.

“It is really important that towns get a voice, so when we are putting together our manifesto, that we have a clear idea of what is the needs of towns.

“That is particularly true when it comes to infrastructure, everybody knows in Cumbria, but not enough people outside Cumbria know, how little investment there is in the infrastructure in Carlisle. How can it be that we’ve got the (Cumberland) infirmary here, it’s really difficult to get around. Yet the two hospitals here are are both under threat at the moment and how difficult that must be. If you’re in labour you could die on the road to hospital, or you could lose the baby.

“Which is why we need to properly invest in our health service, so for round here making sure we do keep our two hospitals. The local parliamentary candidate has been campaigning to ensure we don’t lose beds in the local hospital, that has to be right.

“We’ve had teachers writing into local papers talking about just how bad the investment in schools is. It’s not even investment, it’s buying pencils.

“The idea that the sixth richest economy in the world is running a system where teachers need to beg parents for money for school books is completely wrong.”

She added: “We’ve got our priorities all wrong. There is a basic level that we have fallen below and we should not be falling below it.”