Boz (pictured) is now part of our family and seems to be happily settling into his new life.

As you can see, he’s enjoying the campaign as he gets to meet lots of people and is regularly the centre of attention.

If you see the two of us around the constituency please stop us to say hello.

 I have actively sought to listen to the people of Derby.  I’ve disagreed with many of you but the vast majority speak the kind of sensible common sense that this country needs.

 On the back of that process I’ve decided that, if you elect me, I will focus every fibre of my being on delivering the following pledges:

 1.  I’m going to focus on boosting enterprise. 

Derby has a heritage of private sector excellence.  Big companies ranging from Rolls Royce to Toyota to Egg employ thousands of hard working tax payers.  We need more of that, not just for the city, but for the country too. 

 On top of this, a myriad of entrepreneurs run restaurants, shops and growing technology companies from our city.  These guys also need all the recognition and support the government can offer.  What I’ve heard is that Labour has forgotten them for too long.  To amend this, if you elect me I will:

 -          Campaign to have corporation tax cut

-          Campaign to abolish taxes on the first ten jobs created by new businesses

-          Support my party as we strive to reduce Labour’s new tax rise on jobs

-          Work tirelessly to see regulations on business reduced to help businessmen focus on running their company instead of filling-in government forms

2.  I’m going to help families.

I hear lots of concern about the kids in our city.  Gangs, anti-social behaviour and youth unemployment are all damaging our young generation.  The government can only do so much to manage this.  The very best way to deal with young people’s problems is for parents to be able to provide a safe and loving environment in which kids get the support and advice they need as they set out on life.  This is why family is so important to me and my party.  Supportive families provide a huge social benefit for all of us.  For too long PC-obsessed Labour have made it harder and harder for couples that want to raise their children together to get on.  To reverse this I will:

-          Support my party as it strives to get marriage recognised in the tax and benefits system

-          Campaign to provide extra health visitors for young families in Derby

-          Campaign to have the basic state pension raised

-          Work with housing associations to dramatically improve Derby’s housing stock

-          Work with central and local government to improve the activities available to young people in our City

3.  I’m going to make sure we manage immigration better.

I believe that controlled and well managed immigration is good for the economy.  When my Great-Grandfather came to this country he brought with him a business, qualifications and eventually job opportunities for British workers.  This is the kind of migration that uses the standard of living we enjoy in this country and turns it into an economic asset by attracting talented people from across the world.  We need to make sure this is maintained.  However, migration that is not managed or controlled can be immensely damaging to the fabric of our society.  This is the situation we’ve had under Labour for the last 13 years.  Under Gordon Brown’s government immigration has tripled.   To reverse this I will work hard to support my party as it tries to achieve the following things:

-          Creating an annual limit on non-EU immigration

-          Putting transitional controls on new EU migrants

-          Creating a National Border Force

-          Closing the student visa loopholes

4.  I’m going to protect front-line public services

Labour has invested huge amounts of your money into public services.  However, because they don’t have what it takes to deliver real reform, most of it has been wasted on managers, tick-box processes and IT systems that don’t work.  As we strive to reduce Gordon Brown’s deficit we’ve got to purge this waste out of the system.  It will be a hard and painful thing to do but if it’s done properly we can do more with less.  To make it happen I pledge to:

-          Support a Conservative government as it slashes the amount of reports Derby City Council has to send to Whitehall.

-          Give teachers more powers of discipline in schools so that ill-discipline can be dealt with there and then, not via long-winded and time consuming bureaucratic procedures

-          Increase spending on the NHS every year but help our medical staff focus on patients not the demands of managers

-          Work hard to ensure that, as soon as it is elected, a  Conservative government places a moratorium on new government IT spend

5.  I want Council Tax frozen in Derby for the next two years

Under labour the average council tax bill has risen by over 100%.  We’ve got to stop this.   For the economy to prosper and for businesses to start working again, we need to stop taking so much money out of people’s pay packets.   A Conservative council in Derby working with a Conservative government in Westminster will freeze council tax for the next two years.  We’ll do this by:

-          Cut waste out of the syetm at Derby City Council and keep our budget increase down to no more than 2.5%

-          A Conservative government in Westminster will then cut spend on advertising and consultants and pass the savings on to councils like ours so that they don’t have to increase council tax

I hope this is a clear statement of my priorities.  There’s loads more important stuff that I will work hard to achieve but these are the things you’ve told me you really want me to focus on.  If you think I’ve got it wrong then let me know.  All my contact details are on this site and I genuinely want to hear your views.

1997 – 2004 Soldier:

    2004 – 2006 Aid Worker:  On leaving the Army, Jack went on to work for British charity The HALO Trust.  With HALO, he helped run humanitarian mine clearance and bomb disposal operations in Afghanistan and Somalia.  He was subsequently recruited by The United Nations to provide risk management support to their refugee operations in Sudan and The Democratic Republic of Congo.

2008 – Date Business Advisor:  After completing his masters degree on 2006/7, Jack now works for professional services giant, Ernst & Young, as an advisor to businesses and government departments.  He specialises in implementing complex and high value change programmes.

Ongoing – Education:  Jack was originally educated at his local comprehensive school, Chichester High School for Boys, before taking a year out aged 16 to work as a gamekeeper.  Afterwards, he went on to complete some rather undistinguished A-Levels before joining the Army.  More recently, he returned to education and passed (with Merit) MSc Sustainability and Management at The University of London.

Four years ago I was abroad watching supra-national intervention fail the people I was trying to help.  At the same time I saw nascent businesses struggling to survive but delivering skills, jobs and prospects for the communities that surrounded them.  In those sad months I lost all faith in even the best intentioned centrist state-heavy interventions.  The first thing I realised was that the closer you get to a problem, the closer you are to the solution.  The second thing I realised was that, given the space to create, people will prevail.

For that reason, when I returned to the UK and looked to helping my local community by becoming a councillor, I knew I could never become a Labour or Liberal politician.  I care too much about the freedom of the individual and the de-centralisation of power.

I became a Tory because I don’t believe that children of unemployed parents should strive merely to get better benefits than those that raised them.  I don’t believe that being shift manager should be the summit of aspiration for a labourer.  I believe that given an education system that is flexible, given companies that train as well as work, given employers that are blind to colour, religion and sex, given communities that encourage success, given parents that understand their responsibilities, given public servants freed of bureaucracy, given children that believe there is more, in essence – if given a fair chance, everyone of us can achieve the full scope of our potential and make a positive difference.

The problem is, of course, that not everyone is given a fair chance.  The truth is that people are still born into terrible disadvantage.  The truth is that, for thousands of young people, potential is snubbed out in childhood by parents that don’t care, by peers that mock or by teachers too busy marking exams to nurture the talent they see.  The truth is that there are now multiple generations of the same family that have never known real employment.  The truth is that the Labour government, obsessed with targets, central solutions and problem-solving by restricting the activities of individuals, has failed to deliver on its promises.  

I believe a Conservative government will be different.  Look at the policies pages on this site and see how enthusiastic we are about driving change through incentive and opportunity – not legislation and restriction.  You’ll also notice how a Conservative government would understand that wealth is a means to an end – not the end in itself.  Unless increased wealth brings increased social good it is pointless.  This is something the Labour government, too busy running from its socialist past, never really understood.

So what do I believe in on a national scale?  I think the following points summarise it:

• Reducing central government interference – less bureaucracy, form filling and targets.
• Local experts should be in charge – teachers should run schools, doctors hospitals and policemen police forces
• We should all have a chance to succeed – that means educational opportunities throughout our lives, employers incentivised to support education and training, skills based education for those that want it, and de-coupling a person’s exam results as a 16 year old from their final salary as a 60 year old.
• We need to stop living off an environmental bubble.  We’ve seen what happens when we all live off the false weath of an economic bubble – no one quite believes its going to fail until it does.  We cannot make the same mistake with the environment.  Our generation has one chance to save the world.
• Finally – I believe that there are lots of problems government can’t solve.  Where they exist – we have to look at ourselves, our families and our communities and decide to make the change.