Macdonald served as a councillor in the Newington ward of Southwark from 7 May 2018 to 29 June 2023.[6] On the 25 July 2022 she was announced as the official Labour parliamentary candidate for Norwich North. She has also served as a senior adviser to Harriet Harman and Bob Ainsworth.[7]
Charity campaigning
Macdonald was Campaigns and Policy Director for London-based company Project Everyone between August 2016 and April 2023.[8] Project Everyone was co-founded by Richard Curtis and is dedicated to "achieving sustainable development goals" via "campaign materials, [...] installations, [...] documentaries, [and] events".[9] Macdonald also served as Campaign Director for Hungry for Action Campaign, who aim to spotlight the global food crisis, but resigned from this position upon becoming MP.[10]
Appointments
Macdonald was a Director of the Potter Fields Park Management Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that manages events and maintenance for a park and a churchyard in Southwark.[11] The appointment lasted from 21 July 2021 until 28 November 2022, when she resigned from her position.[12]
Parliamentary career
In 2022, Macdonald announced she would be standing for the Labour parliamentary candidacy against Karen Davis, who stood in the 2019 general election against Conservative incumbent Chloe Smith. In response to a video by Macdonald supporting her own candidacy, Emma Corlett remarked: "This video literally uses photos from Karen Davis' campaign on holiday hunger and has you walking past the Vote Labour boards she and I put up with our bare (splintered) hands."[1]
Macdonald was elected to represent Norwich North at the 2024 general election. She received 20,794 votes, a 45.4% share of the vote and a majority of 10,850. There were six candidates and a turnout of 62%.[13]
The result was a 18.2% swing to Labour from 2019. The unpopularity of the Conservatives in her area was the deciding factor in a result that also saw significant vote share increase for Reform and The Green Party.
Voting history
In a vote particularly notable because of her history with a charity whose business is poverty, Alice Macdonald voted against the highly publicized amendment to the King's speech that would have recognised the two child benefit cap as a leading cause of child poverty. Seven MPs were suspended from the Labour Party by Keir Starmer for voting for the bill, though Starmer himself abstained, along with his chancellor Rachel Reeves.[14][15]