How I became a politician

My introduction to local politics followed from my involvement with the Queen's Rd Traders (QRT), a small business organisation I helped to found. The role of the QRT was to promote regeneration in the upper Queen's Road corridor, the so-called “Gateway to the Seafront” for most tourists. Our mission was to create a regeneration proposal for the area, including upper Queen's Road and the surrounding residential areas.

After consulting with the politicians, community groups and bureaucrats, we published the proposal. It called for public safety improvements, including the Queen's Road pedestrian crossings at the Morrison's garage and Waterworks Rd, for other improvements to the public highways, enhanced services, including rubbish and dog fouling bins and better community policing.

Councillors from all parties endorsed the proposals, as did community groups and borough officers. Significantly, Godfrey Daniel, the County Councillor for our district wrote to me to say that he believed an Ikea on upper Queen's Road would be good for the area. This is where I began to part philosophical company with him.

I reasoned that an Ikea would put almost every local business on Queen's Road out of business. And, I also thought that it would create huge congestion and parking problems for residents. But this was just the beginning ... I have rarely seen eye-to-eye with Cllr. Daniel since.

In order to lobby for funding for what was called the “Upper Queen's Road Corridor Regeneration Proposal,” I became involved with the Castle Ward Forum and was elected by the committee to represent the Forum on the Area Management Board (AMB) for Central Hastings, co-chaired by Cllr. Daniel, and the Local Strategic Partnership Board (LSP). There was not a single instance I can recall when the AMB met the physical and social challenges with respect to Castle Ward.

I realised that costly and ineffective Area Management Boards were New Labour gadgets set up to give the impression of community empowerment, but which really did nothing of the sort.

Three years on, with no progress on regeneration in the Queen's Road Corridor Gateway (and with no progress being made against deprivation or public safety in Castle Wards hotspots), I decided the system needed fixing. I quit the AMB and LSP, because I believed my continued participation was legitimising public deception and manipulation. I decided to run for Borough Council.

Although, I lost against an amazingly well greased New Labour politicking machine, I did get about 11% of the vote. Voter turn out was terrible, about a third of the electorate, a factor New Labour is better able to exploit strategically. Now, four years on, still nothing has changed, so I'm running again, this time for the County Council seat held by Godfrey Daniel. If electors are motivated, if they motivate each other, if we get everyone to show up at the polls, I can win.