Suella Fernandes is a trainee Barrister who has been an active member of her local community. Her mother, Uma Fernandes, is a nurse and a local Councillor and was a Parliamentary candidate. Her father, Christie Fernandes, (ex- Nairobi - Dr Ribeiro School - Class of '63 and Assagao, Goa) is a local activist.

Suella has been selected as the Conservative candidate for Leicester East at the next General Election, opposing Labour’s Keith Vaz.

In her free time, Suella is a keen charity worker, assisting Legal Advice Clinics and as a School Governor. She was Chairman of Cambridge Conservatives whilst studing at the University there. She was a post-graduate student at the Paris Sorbonne and speaks fluent French and Spanish. She enjoys playing jazz piano, listening to R’ and B’ and reggae music, travelling (especially camping) and is a film lover.

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The Conservative Party spent the conference season trying to shrug off its image of blue rinses, blue blazers and varicose veins. Yet it is not just the boy-band Busted who the Tories managed to woo to their cause. I saw with my own eyes a phalanx of bright, attractive, intelligent youth pouring into the Tory embrace.

Take Suella Fernandes. Fernandes is 24 years old, a member of the Brent North Conservative Association in London, and a prospective parliamentary candidate in Leicester. Pretty, with blonde streaks in her long hair and red lipstick, she has nothing in common with the twinset-and-pearls Tory female stereotype. Her clothes scream high-street shop, not Harvey Nicks. Her family is comfortably off and Asian. The Bradford branch of the party was recently disbanded after two Asian Tories suffered racism. I ask if it has influenced her view of the Conservatives. "This is my party. I want them to win," she says emphatically. Standing nearby is K wasi, a tall young man dressed in a suit. His family came to Britain from Africa some years ago and would once have been seen as solid Labour supporters

"I've never felt I've had to struggle," says 23-year-old Suella Fernandes of being young, Asian and female in the Conservative Party. "I've just had to be myself and haven't felt that anything's entitled to me because I'm an Asian female. I just have to do my best and work hard for the party in any way that a white man would have to do."

Suella is a model Conservative. The Sorbonne-educated trainee barrister was president of Cambridge University's Conservative Association and says she wouldn't have continued with her party membership had she felt alienated and has a firm belief in fundamental Conservative principles.

Her mother is contesting the Brent East seat for the Tories in the upcoming by-election and Suella is also on the candidates list. But is there any point in being put forward for a seat with a 33,000 Labour majority?

"Every election has an element of chance," she says. "Stranger things have happened." Suella will begin studying at the London Law School in September and says that law and politics are complementary professions. "Standing up for people's rights and representing their views at the highest level as part of the establishment is a step in the right direction for effecting change."

Source: http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/rise/story/0,,1036492,00.html