Antonia Bance is a feminist and a socialist. She works as a campaigner for one women's charity and is trustee of another. In 2005, she was Labour's parliamentary candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon, garnering 8725 votes for the parliamentary road to socialism. Antonia is 25 and lives in Rose Hill, Oxford, with her fiancée Jo and a hamster called Honey. She blogs at Antonia's blog.
Why do you blog? > Originally, to publicize my election campaign; now purely for vanity.
What has been your best blogging experience? > Being invaded by Fathers4Justice.
What has been your worst blogging experience? > Being invaded by Fathers4Justice.
What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger? > Be prepared for what happens when you blog about Israel, Fathers4Justice or abortion: Holocaust deniers, wife beaters and religious nuts come out of the woodwork.
What are your favourite blogs? > Let's be sensible, Philobiblion and Oxblog.
What is the best novel you've ever read? > His Dark Materials.
What is your favourite song? > 'Beautiful'. [Link corrected - NG.]
Can you name a work of non-fiction which has had a major and lasting influence on how you think about the world? > Alan Dershowitz's The Case for Israel, lent to me after I fluffed a question from a SWPer at a hust during the election.
Who are your political heroes? > I don't subscribe to the 'great man' theory of history.
What is your favourite piece of political wisdom? > Don't stop until the ballot box has closed.
If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be? > Labour should be shaped by the potential of office, not the desperation of opposition. Those 18 years were eight years ago and we've won three elections, but there's still so much left to do.
What do you consider to be the main threat to the future peace and security of the world? > The growing belief that there are acceptable alternatives to democracy.
Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come? > This can't be as good as it gets. My grandparents' generation eradicated smallpox, and my parents' generation brought down the Berlin Wall; what will be my generation's contribution?
What would be your most important piece of advice about life? > No-one won an election by writing to The Guardian.
Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? > How would you do it? I'm so tired of people who, when asked how their partners vote, say 'We've never discussed it'. What do you mean, you've never discussed it? What on earth do you find to talk about? And how do you know you're not sleeping with a Tory?!
What do you consider the most important personal quality? > Empathy.
What personal fault do you most dislike? > Lack of curiosity.
Do you have any prejudices you're willing to acknowledge? > I have limited patience with stupid people.
What commonly enjoyed activities do you regard as a waste of time? > The Sims.
What, if anything, do you worry about? > Not having a rainy day stash under the bed.
If you were to relive your life to this point, is there anything you'd do differently? > Get up earlier in the morning for those three short precious university years – so much to find out, and I was asleep.
Where would you most like to live (other than where you do)? > Philadelphia.
What would your ideal holiday be? > An itinerary of sightseeing and of lunches, dinners and drinking with interesting conversationalists, preferably in the United States.
What do you like doing in your spare time? > Knocking up Labour voters.
What talent would you most like to have? > The ability to think three steps ahead.
What would be your ideal choice of alternative profession or job? > I'd be a teacher, maybe doing the new citizenship curriculum with teenagers.
Who is your favourite comedian or humorist? > John O'Farrell, good old Labour boy.
Which English Premiership football team do you support? > Crystal Palace. (Yes, I know that's not strictly an answer to the question asked, but it should be and will be again next season, o ye of little faith.)
How, if at all, would you change your life were you suddenly to win or inherit an enormously large sum of money? > I'd buy a house in Oxford. It would take an enormously large sum of money to do it!
If you could have any three guests, past or present, to dinner who would they be? > Sylvia Pankhurst, Hillary Clinton and Barbara Castle.
[The normblog profile is a weekly Friday morning feature. A list of all the profiles to date, and the links to them, can be found here.]