Jonathan Sheppard: Why any Conservative must support Royal Mail reform

Jonathan Sheppard is editor of www.toryradio.com and contested Bassetlaw at the 2005 general election.

At the outset I must confess I have a vested interest in the future success of Royal Mail. I started my career as a humble mail room boy and have four years' worth of pension contributions which I would dearly like to see some day. Even if that wasn’t the case, my experience of having worked in the Public Affairs department for a number of years has convinced me that any Conservative should be wholly supportive of Royal Mail reform.

Yet when it was announced that a Labour Government was pushing forward plans to part privatise Royal Mail, I nearly fell off my chair. Not because I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes no sense for them to pick this fight at this moment in time.

Some bloggers have argued that as the Conservatives are in opposition, they should of course oppose this measure. I take a different view. Given as a party when we were last in power we proposed to privatise all of Royal Mail, why on earth would we object to private involvement now?

Jonathan Sheppard: The last post

Jonathan Sheppard, who worked for the Royal Mail Group's Corporate Affairs Department during the Urban Reinvention programme, looks at the debate over post office closures.

The debate about Post Office closures is not a new one. For my sins, any parliamentary question that was asked about the whole of the Royal Mail came to me for an answer, so I am well versed in their, "That is a commercial matter for the Post Office" response that Government often gives now when it wants to pass the buck onto Post office management.

When I started working for Royal Mail, there were close to 20,000 post office branches. We must not forget that bar 500 or so directly operated offices (the figure is smaller now) all of the branches are private businesses run by sub-postmasters usually along with a local shop. When the sub office closed it was usually because the sub-postmaster wanted to retire and that he or she owned the building and wanted to turn it back to residential accommodation.

Often the Post Office got blamed for closing the office when it actual fact it was the sub-postmaster who no longer wanted to continue.

Jonathan Sheppard: Get your tanks out of our kids lunchboxes

Jonathan Sheppard is Editor of ToryRadio.

Now I don't have children so perhaps this is really none of my business, however I have to say that I was somewhat alarmed when I heard that the Government intended providing parents with advice as to what makes up a healthy packed lunch.

In itself there is absolutely nothing wrong with giving advice as to what makes a healthy packed lunch. The problem is when it is taken too literally. Already there are reports that children are developing bone problems because their parents have been led to believe that full fat milk is wrong. Suddenly parents don't give their children milk, yet fail to provide them a regular source of calcium which growing bodies need.

Already the news has reported stories of kids having their jaffa cakes (can you tell I'm partial to one or perhaps three) because they are seen as a "bad food". If I had children and I learnt that anyone in authority at school had confiscated food intended for my child I am sure you would have to scrape me off the ceiling. I would be that angry.

What right does a school have to say what children, who opt out of school meals, should eat? If they are going down that route I would suggest that perhaps an audit should be done on whether any teachers smoke – as it isn't healthy you know. Ah – but adults can make choices for themselves. Well parents can make choices for their children, too.

We also need to get away from the concept of bad and good food. Chocolate is not a bad food. In fact it can be quite healthy. What isn't healthy is eating too much of it, just as eating too much cheese, or too many crisps is bad. We should not suggest crisps are bad.

Of greater importance is the issue of exercise. My father was (and still is) a teacher, although not in this country now, and in fact he was a PE teacher at my own school. I would suggest the Government may care to look at the lack of competitive sport in schools before they blame everything on food. How many schools no longer have playing fields? How many of those that do no longer offer competitive sports either because teachers have no time, don't want to be involved, or it is felt that the possibility of litigation from any accident really doesn't make it worthwhile? There are numerous statistics which suggest that whilst calorific intake has risen slightly, the amount of calories burned during exercise had plummeted. That's the problem that needs to be addressed.

If and when I have any children I hope I won't be the sort of parent who allows them to have a TV in the bedroom. I want to sit down and eat as a family and I would love them to be involved in competitive sport if it’s something they would like to try. And if they want a packet of crisps every now and then, or maybe even a chocolate biscuit, I don't think that's a bad thing either!

Jonathan Sheppard: It'll pay the Tories to turn to crime

Jonathan Sheppard (of the Despatch Box blog) was the Conservative Party Candidate in Bassetlaw in the 2005 General Election. He works in Government Relations for a major High Street retailer based in Nottingham, and is also unpaid political adviser to a Shadow Minister.

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There are some within the Conservative party who think being a “moderniser” is a dirty word. Others believe that only “right wing” solutions can reinvigorate our party. Both propositions are wrong.

The party needs to recognise the importance of having clear thought out policy platforms on issues like the environment, and international development. We can’t ignore issues such as energy – which will dominate the next few years and have to ensure we have well thought out policies on both renewables and - the “Cinderella” of the debate – energy efficiency. At the same time we have to ensure we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water and ignore issues where the public perceive we are much better equipped to deliver than the current Government. One such issue is Law and Order.

During the last election the party was criticised for concentrating too much on the issue of Crime and Law and Order, but is that criticism justified? As a candidate I stressed the issue of crime, and pushed the slogan “Time to put the law back into Bassetlaw” in my constituency wide newspaper. Why did I do it? Not because I wanted to concentrate on a policy that would just appeal to a core Conservative vote – but because it was an issue that was being talked about locally.

Crime in Nottinghamshire rose 17% between 98/99 and 03/04 with a decrease of 18 police stations. Our policy commitment of over 740 new police for the county was warmly welcomed. The previous Labour Council had installed CCTV to monitor a local community centre that had continued the get vandalised. Unfortunately they put the cameras on 8 foot high poles – so the cameras were stolen hours after their installation. Incidents such as this were one of the reasons why Bassetlaw returned a Conservative Council for the first time in 25 years.

To those who suggest the Conservatives should stop “banging on” about crime I say it would be remiss of any opposition not to. We would not only be failing the victims of crime – but failing the law abiding public. Linked to crime is the issue of drug use.

My admirable opponent in the election stated, “In most of the schools in my constituency the recreational use of cannabis is 100 % among 16 year olds.” I believe that the decision taken by the Labour Government on cannabis reclassification was wrong. The Police Federation stated that the downgrading of the drug could lead many people into believing it was a legal drug. The British Medical Association has said that smoking cannabis increases the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and emphysema. That’s not to mention the mental health problems which are linked to the drug.

Under this Government prisons are now almost full to capacity. Labour’s solution is tagging – but tagging doesn’t stop criminals offending when they are out on early release. We need to commit to building more prisons - because prison works. More needs to be done to ensure prisons are drug free, and that more is done to educate inmates with basic skills in order to combat recidivism.

The current Government has made anti social behaviour a priority. Yet they believe you create a café culture by opening pubs 24 hours a day. I would suggest you create a café culture by opening more cafés, not by turning many of our towns and cities into no go areas during the evening.

What is clear is Labour is failing on the issue of law and order and the Conservative party needs to continue highlighting these failings whilst offering real solutions to these serious issues.

Jonathan Sheppard: I'm voting for David Davis

Jonathan Sheppard (of the Despatch Box blog) was the Conservative Party Candidate in Bassetlaw in the 2005 General Election. He works in Government Relations for a major High Street retailer based in Nottingham, and is also unpaid political adviser to a Shadow Minister.  Jonathan submitted this article to conservativehome before the Blackpool Conference.

I joined the Conservative party in 1990 – and now aged thirty I have already spent half of my life already as a Conservative. Ever since I have been old enough to vote, the Conservatives have lost General Election after General Election – the upshot being that the party has now lost three in a row, the fist time in modern democracy.

Unless you have been stranded on a desert island, you couldn’t help to notice that the party is once again in the midst of a leadership election. This time I would suggest the decision taken by the party is more important than ever. The public are getting weary of our party changing leaders in the hope that it will bring better results. We don’t want to become just like the football club who gets a new manager yet doesn’t shake up the squad, but still expects a better performance on the pitch.

I am not one of those who is prepared to criticise any of the candidates who have put themselves forward for this election. We are all Conservatives, and there is a frustration I and many others share, in that since May 5th we have let the current Government get on with doing what ever they want – while we have focussed our guns inwards.

There are many good candidates, but for me one man, (and this time it is a man) stands head and shoulders above the rest. That man is David Davis.

Critics have said we need a “big beast” to take on Gordon Brown, but I say big beasts can be slow, cumbersome, and often become extinct – especially in modern day politics.
What the party needs is an agile, and disciplined performer, and that man is David Davis.

Much of the debate has focussed on whether a candidate is a moderniser or a traditionalist. In Davis I say we have the best of both worlds. We have a candidate who is rightly Eurosceptic, a candidate who believes wholeheartedly that hard working people pay too much tax, yet at the same time believes that we need to reform public services, not smash them, and I am sure is committed to reforming the party internally to ensure we are best placed to take the fight to Labour.

But what of the criticism which is thrown at David Davis? Some say he lazy – yet at the same time he is accused of being a hard task master  as  a boss, having the cheek to call people at 11:00pm at night. You mean to say he brings the drive of a business-man to the world of politics? I say more of it!

Some say that his parliamentary experience isn’t as wide as the other candidates. I point to his Chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee and more recently his masterful handling of the Home Office brief as just two examples of what a Davis could look like. Given that crime and the war and terror are likely to dominate the political agenda for years to come, there can be no better preparation for party leader than having been in charge of that portfolio.

I was once told that where you come from isn’t as important as where you going, however that is only half true. Where you come from can shape your opinions, and can be a determining factor in where you may end up. I can’t remember the amount of times I was told “You aren’t a typical Tory” when I was on the door-step in Bassetlaw, by people including  ex miners and public sector workers. This was down to my background, which included the fact that I was from the East Midlands, I had worked the majority of my working life in the public sector, and I knew what it was like to be brought up in a single parent family. In short I could empathise with them, and in return they were prepared to give me a fair hearing. David Davis wasn’t born into the Conservative party – he chose it, and therefore his convictions are all the more stronger for it.

If we are to win those voters who deserted us for Labour in 1997, from the urban areas, and from the North and Midlands, then we need a leader who can go into those Labour areas, and make people think twice about the party. They may not agree with everything we say, but if they think, “Well their leader went to a state school; he was brought up by a single parent family – he knows about modern day pressures” then we are half-way there. It would be a fool who discounts a persons background.

His ability to see off the Lib Dems decapitation strategy in his own back yard, trebling his majority in the process just goes to show what we can expect in campaigning terms under a Davis leadership – a will to win.

Some may say that I am not the best person to judge the merits of David Davis. I would say you are right. But perhaps his colleagues are in the best place to past judgement – and at the time of writing he already has the support of 66 Conservative MPs.

Any future leader has to have the confidence of his colleagues in Parliament, and must ensure he draws upon the experience of people from across the spectrum of the party. Only David Davis has shown he can achieve this.

His recently launched manifesto highlights his desire for “Changing Britain, Improving Lives”. For this to happen it is essential that the Conservative Party re-discover its will to win. Under David Davis I am sure it will.

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