ConservativeHome's Community

Richard Robinson

LOCATION... Surrey & London

SELF-DESCRIPTION... I was an Investment Manager first with the Coal Board Pension Funds and later for the Kuwait Government and a director of property and industrial companies in United States, Canada and Europe. In 1989 I set up my own investment company, which specialises in financing small businesses in Europe.

I attended Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School in Rochester, the University of Salford (BSc Economics) and Birkbeck College London (MA Renaissance Studies).

I’ve been involved in Conservative politics since 1968, as a ward chairman and borough councillor in Rochester and more recently Chairman and President of Surrey Heath Conservative Association. In 2004, I was a candidate for the European Parliament for the South East Region. I’m currently Chairman of Surrey Conservatives and Deputy Coordinator for the Southeast Region.

POLITICAL BELIEFS... Libertarian, localist, eurosceptic.

Graeme Archer

LOCATION... Hackney E9 (and counting). Our manor is bound by Broadway Market to the west, Victoria Park to the east and Bethnal Green tube to the south. Former locations: Bow E3 (hence fan of pie and mash); Harlow, Essex (hence fan of all things white-van-ish); Ispra, northern Italy (hence fan of Europe-not-run-by-Europe); Glasgow University (the best days of anyone's life, this government will burn in hell for what it's done to good universities and the chances of working class people attending them); formerly of Ardrossan, Ayrshire (hence love of drab wet days and allergy to sunshine).

SELF-DESCRIPTION... I'm remarkably fond of cats, is that telling? I have a Ph.D. in Bayesian inference, which is why I'm always grumbling about the "poll of polls". Work in early-phase Psychiatry Drug Discovery for a major pharma. Mid 30s. Essex boy at heart, I should have been born there. Keith Pannell is the centre of my life. Vegetarian, one of those ridiculous teen-age decisions that stuck, see my website for the best vegan lasagne recipe on god's green earth. Would like to be Anglican, but just can't manage it. Biker (ZX6R) with silly tattoo to prove it. These things are happiness: Sunday morning in bed with the papers and Marks and Spencer porridge, with chopped almonds; a train journey somewhere new; sweat-drenched aftermath of a Belle and Sebastian concert; running three times round Victoria Park without collapsing; Andrew Boff winning the Queensbridge by-election last year; gin and tonic with Keith while dinner's cooking after we've done a good day's work AND been to the gym!

POLITICAL BELIEFS... You don't get anywhere by being unpleasant. It's nearly always better to trust people to make their own choices. Religion is not an excuse for forcing life choices on others. Belle and Sebastian are a force for good. I'm much more right-wing than you think at first. Politics is not mathematics, and obsessives who try to use ideological axioms to "prove" that any one policy is optimal are not only barking, they're on a hiding to nothing, although their youthful exuberance is sweet.

POLITICAL HERO... Andrew Boff, for living a life that visibly demonstrates that the point of being a Tory is to care about helping others. Benjamin Disraeli, how I forced myself through those dreadful novels when I was a student, second only to Virginia Woolf for unreadability to be honest. Not a hero but I usually agree with Rod Liddle, which I sometimes worry about.

FAVOURITE BLOGS... this one, and mine! And of course the Hackney Conservatives website - join the revolution to Get Labour Out Of Hackney!

FAVOURITE CH CONTRIBUTOR... I like reading everyone, even the people I really, REALLY disagree with.

Charles Hodgson

LOCATION... Aberdeen, Scotland

SELF-DESCRIPTION... 16 year old student.  I was born in Kew, London and have lived in Paris, London, and for the past ten years, Aberdeen.  Just beginning to get involved in Conservative politics (although Aberdeen isn't exactly a hotbed of Tory activity). I am finishing school in spring 2007 and I hope to go on to study either PPE at Oxford, York or Warwick, or Philosophy and Economics at LSE or UCL.

POLITICAL BELIEFS... Libertarian... Pro-free market and civil rights but anti-EU, advocate of transatlantic co-operation (i.e: pro "war on terror").  Small government, local descision making, anti-government controlled NHS, pro-selection in schools.

POLITICAL HERO... Disraeli, Churchill, Asquith, Thatcher, Boris Johnson.

FAVOURITE BLOGS... ConservativeHome, PoliticalBetting.

Patsy Sergeant

LOCATION... Sussex within sight of the Southdowns.

SELF-DESCRIPTION... Member of the University of the Third Age - U3A.  I was a nurse for the first adult decade.  In the civil service for 10 years, where I learned Russian.  I lived in Malaysia for 10 years under Mahathirs rule, bringing up my step children, their father died in 1990 not long after we retired to UK.  The last significant decade I spent with someone I regarded the love of my life, and he died very suddenly two years ago.  I am just now 'moving on'.  He was a Guardian reader and I am a lifelong Telegraph reader, politics came up in conversation daily.  He became increasingly disillusioned with this goverment, and very depressed. I am a painter and also a silversmither and also a passionate rose grower amongst other flowers - I love colour.

POLITICAL BELIEFS... I believe in the rule of law, but I am not very impressed with SOME lawyers.  I think everybody should take responsibility for their own actions and not immediately blame other people.  Like others on this website I believe in smaller more localised and perhaps more accountable government.  These elephantine regional mechanisms have no incentive to care about anyone other than themselves, and who they are instructed to care about!

POLITICAL HEROES... Disraeli, Churchill, William Hague (whom I would like to meet!).  And nowadays Tony Benn because although I do not agree with his political ideas much, he has integrity and it shines these days.

FAVOURITE BLOGS... Guido Fawkes - I spent part of the war evacuated to Coughton Court Castle, one of the places where the Gunpowder Plot was plotted, so it always signified perhaps more to me than to the average person!

FAVOURITE CH CONTRIBUTOR... William Norton,  John Hustings and of course Annabel with her jaunty posts!