Shaun is a 35 year old youth worker, and one of the contenders for the Conservative parliamentary candidacy in Hammersmith. His political hero is Martin Luther King and he wants to represent his local area because "I understand the community and the community understands me". Michael Ehioze-Ediae met him yesterday on behalf of ConservativeHome. His website is here.
What do you do?
I am the director of a charity called MyGeneration which is involved in youth and family work. The charity runs a job club, football club and other special projects like organising educational trips. The aim of all our activities is to teach young people to be independent and take personal responsibility for their actions. I am also a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies.
Why did you become interested in politics?
I work in a sector where the sad realities of socialist policies are revealed. Our young people are exposed to drugs and pornography and the liberal elite promote policies that are crushing the poor. Labour’s policies have created a dependency culture and all the people I know who have done badly are products of the dependency culture.
My Granny and all her contemporaries believe in the politics of personal responsibility and self-determination. Also, all the strong communities that I know attained their strength though personal responsibility and not state hand-outs. These are conservative beliefs and that is why I am a Conservative.
Why do you want to be an MP?
I have been successfully involved in community work for 19 years and I would like a platform to affect the wider community. I would also like to challenge some of the perceived politics notions of the establishment such as political correctness and liberal attitudes to drugs and crime. I also have a means of communicating with the youth and I believe people from my racial and employment background should be represented in the party and in the House of Commons.
What would you say to people who argue that it is only because you are black that you might win the primaries?
I will ask them to look at the quality of my work and who I am. If they know a black, white, red or green person that it as qualified as I am, they should bring the person forward.
What issues will you champion if you are elected?
I will focus on the issues of Crime, Housing, community regeneration, education and provision for the elderly. I believe that too many people are being set free before they serve their sentences and I would scrap or drastically cut inheritance tax. Also, stamp duty should be reduced and shared ownership schemes should be expanded.
What are your views on the EU?
It’s nice that we are members of the EU but we should think very long and hard before we give up any more of our sovereignty. This country has over a hundred year’s history of democracy and as such we should not just surrender our democracy to Europe.
Did you support the invasion of Iraq?
No, because wars are always messy and it was unlikely that the war would end how it was scripted. The fact that Tony Blair was heavily in favour of the war meant that we should have questioned the feasibility of the war. Now that we are in this mess; we have a moral obligation to sort it out. We should only have gone to war with the UN’s approval.
What do you think of George Bush?
He has his own issues which are not ours and he is big enough to sort them out.
America is our major trading partner and has been our good friend for many years. But it does not mean that they should be our boss. We are the masters of our own destiny.
Should Britain join America if it decided to take military action against Iran?
America has its own issues but it does not mean that we have to be involved.
