Polly Billington (born 1967) is a former BBC journalist who worked on the Today programme before becoming a special advisor to Ed Miliband. She was the media director for his successful bid in the 2010 Labour leadership election. Billington is the Labour Party's parliamentary candidate for South Thanet and previously was the candidate for Thurrock at the 2015 general election and a Labour Party official. She is a Strategic Adviser to UK100, and councillor for De Beauvoir ward in the London Borough of Hackney.
Education and journalism career
Billington went to the Ursuline High School in Wimbledon and Sussex University before taking a postgraduate diploma in Broadcast Journalism at the department of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Central Lancashire in 1993.
Billington was a BBC reporter for the Today programme, Newsbeat on Radio 1, News 24 and the Politics Show.
Labour Party official and candidate
She became a special adviser to Ed Miliband in 2007 when he was working on party policy and election strategy in the Cabinet Office and according to The Daily Telegraph she was the 59th most influential person on the UK left in 2011.
Billington sought to become a parliamentary candidate in February 2010, when she was shortlisted for the safe Labour seat of North Tyneside. She was the media director for Ed Miliband's successful Labour leadership bid. Some credited her with honing his questions and replies to David Cameron at Prime Minister's Questions.
In November 2011, Billington launched another bid to be selected as a Labour MP, this time in Thurrock. This time she gained the nomination for a marginal seat. She was one of 15 Labour candidates each given financial support of £10,000 by Lord Matthew Oakeshott the former Liberal Democrat in January 2015. However, she failed to win the close 3-way contest in Thurrock and came second.
She was one of two Labour Party councillors elected to De Beauvoir ward in the 2018 Hackney London Borough Council election, with 1,448 votes. She was reelected in 2022, with 1,400 votes.
Among other roles, Billington has served as an Executive Member of SERA, Labour's Environment Campaign
On 24 February 2023 she was selected by local party members as the parliamentary candidate for East Thanet at the next general election.
Founder of UK100
Billington is a Strategic Adviser to UK100, the only network for UK locally elected leaders who have pledged to play their part in the global effort to avoid the worst impacts of climate change by switching to 100% clean energy by 2050. The most ambitious - UK100's Net Zero Local Leadership Club - are doing everything within their power to get their communities to Net Zero as soon as possible, and by 2045 at the latest. She liaises with local leaders and directly elected mayors and develops and maintains strong relationships with extensive contacts across the political and nonprofit spectrum.
She established UK100 in 2016 and served as the CEO until February 2023 when she was selected as Labour's parliamentary candidate for South Thanet.