Mrs Booth, who is married to actor Tony Booth and is mother-in-law to Cherie Blair and her husband former Prime Minister Tony Blair, was selected to fight the seat in November and has previous experience as a councillor on Tavistock Town Council.

She and Mr Booth both joined the Todmorden branch of the Labour Party after moving to their town in December 2006 and Mrs Booth first joined the party in the 1970s.

She said the elections should be about local issues and local people and a key problem which needed addressing was how people were properly consulted about change at a vital time for the town.

This included a coherent rather than piecemeal development policy and the need to work out what was exactly right for the town. Last weekend she collected signatures opposing the proposed Abraham Ormerod Centre development because the design was not right for Todmorden, she said.

“There has to be an informed and articulate debate about the future of Todmorden and it has to be one that include’s all the town’s people. Where do we see ourselves in ten years’ time?” she said.

“On the Abraham Ormerod Centre site, I’m not against development of the site or even against developers McCarthy and Stone.

“The problem the Labour Party have with it is that what is planned is simply not appropriate for that site.”

The future of Bramsche Square was another issue on which people needed to feel involved and there had to be less “top down” imposition of ideas and more grass roots input.

Current methods of consultation, such as arranging meetings which might be difficult to get to or where people might not feel confident enough to ask questions, needed rethinking.

Mrs Booth said she and her husband had settled in Todmorden because they really liked the feel of the town and it was the town and its future that was important regardless of some not-always-welcome national press interest through the Blair family link.

The Blairs however are pleased she is standing but they have not been asked to appear “on the stump”, she said.