Richard is the Gloucestershire bred conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Gloucester. He is a Director of a well known investment company with previous experience of the RAF, airline management and diplomacy, with board or executive roles in charities, government trade bodies, Chambers of Commerce, and local government as well. He is married with three children and a resident of Westgate, Gloucester and Cirencester.
Richard believes passionately that Gloucester needs an MP who can meet several tough
criteria:
I believe we need an MP focused on Gloucester's needs, not his own ministerial ambitions
An MP who understands that Gloucester is not an island, but the centre of a county - which in turn provides much of our food, our space and our weekend entertainment; as well as our shoppers, students, users of transport and rugby supporters; an MP who can work with our neighbours, not against them, in solutions for transport, health and waste.
An MP who can stand up for Gloucester even when that means going against your own party's policies.
An MP who understands Gloucester's traditions, the buildings that we have shaped and which in turn have shaped us; our ancient schools, churches and shire structure; not someone for whom history is an obstacle to a new initiative or his party's obsession with regionalisation.
An MP who sees that the regeneration of Gloucester is much more than an inward investment statistic: that it's about motivating people to join in, volunteer, work and have ambitions for life - and to have pride in their city
An MP who believes in tough love and knows that leadership, like parenthood, is at its best when it confronts what is wrong, rather than pretending that the problem doesn't exist; that when youth or community centres are burnt down, statues are damaged and teenage gangs dominate certain streets then society IS broken and needs fixing.
An MP who can face difficult issues without photocalls, like the number of our teenagers not in education, employment or training; the number of drug addicts in our prison; the negative impact of the extended licensing laws and a benefits system that gives no incentive for a young mother to go back to work.
Above all we need an MP who recognises that the easy years are over; that the decade of throwing taxpayer money to paper over problems no longer works - 'a day without a new initiative is a day wasted for New Labour (David Blunkett)' - and has run out of credibility as well as money.
And we need an MP who can respond to people who believe that it's time for a change - nationally and in Gloucester.
Contact Richard on 07881 831586 if you want to help.
An extract from on of Richard's Thought for the Month (see home page):
Politics is not primarily about Brown, Blair and Bush, Prescott, private secretaries, the House of Commons or even Iraq, though these things grab the headlines. It’s about every person’s daily experience of life – of lots of little and not so little things that make life better, or worse: the buses and pension cheques being on time, the streets not filthy, the park not a hideout for drug distribution, and the rubbish collected. We hope for inspiration from the library and the local museum: and exercise and well being from our local leisure centre. We look to teachers to care about our children and the hospitals to care about our parents: to the police to protect us from crime: and to the armed forces and intelligence services to defend us from terrorism and other threats.
Is there anyone who can read this and still say - these things don't matter, I'm not interestested in politics?
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Council