Cancer campaigner Victoria's election plea to save more lives

As polling day fast-approaches, Victoria, who is a volunteer Campaigns Ambassador for Cancer Research UK, is issuing a rallying cry for people to back the charity’s Turning Point for Cancer campaign.

Underlining an alarming £1bn gap in UK funding for life-saving research over the next decade, she says the illness must be a top election priority for all political parties.

Victoria, who lost her nanny to pancreatic cancer in 2014, her grandad to prostate cancer in 2017 and saw her dad receive a bladder and prostate cancer diagnosis in 2022, is urging Westminster candidates to commit to help transform cancer survival if they’re elected.

Her call comes as new analysis from the charity reveals around 2.2 million people in the UK are projected to be diagnosed with the disease in the next five years.

Victoria told the Chronicle: “Cancer affects every family, in every constituency. We must make sure it is at the forefront of the minds of all future Westminster MPs in every UK nation.

“As political parties reach out to the country, there’s never been a better opportunity to come together and demand the action people affected by cancer so desperately need and deserve. So, I hope local people will get involved by emailing their local candidates and having their say.

“Saving lives must come before politics. This general election must be a turning point for cancer.”

Victoria is also calling on the next UK Government to bring back legislation to raise the age of sale of tobacco in the first King’s speech following the election, so that nobody born on or after January 2009 would ever legally be sold cigarettes in their lifetime.

This would mean Northern Ireland could begin its own legislative process again to help ensure that every UK nation protects future generations from the harms caused by tobacco.

Smoking is the biggest cause of cancer and is responsible for around 55,000 cases a year in the UK.

Join the Turning Point for Cancer campaign and email Westminster candidates at cruk.org/localcandidates