Parliamentary candidates tend to present themselves both as local campaigners working on your behalf, and as ‘experts in government’ able to solve problems by knowing how government works. The former is much easier than the latter.
Prof Paul Reynolds campaigns on your behalf to help improve services and pursue answers to the problems that the community has, to the appropriate authorities.
However, to address longer term problems and ensure government works for the people (not the other way round) it is necessary for your representatives in Parliament to make it their business to know how government works, and understand the underlying problems that cause government inefficiency or wrong-headed policies. These days too, it is necessary to have a solid grasp of how public services work, to understand the real world of business and the economy, and to be on top those international events and European issues that have such a large impact on our lives and have caused us to engage in two wars without sufficient public support.
Prof Paul Reynolds has strived for years to understand government, and how to effect change in how government works for you. Paul, however, is no armchair commentator. He travelled to Iraq and Afghanistan to undertake peacemaking work and learn what is going on there.
His experience goes wider. He has been a health district governor, a local councilor, an adviser to governments, a policymaker with the Liberal Democrats in the UK, a chair of a large charity, an executive in a large international company, an adviser to some of the largest corporations in the world, and a school governor. Paul built up a successful small business from scratch, has taught at universities all over the world, and he has worked as a health visitor.
Why does Paul say he is ‘on your side’? This is because he is angry at the MPs expense scandals and the misuse of taxpayers’ funds. He is also very unhappy at the way that politics has become a ‘game of influence & money’ in the UK. Paul represents ONLY the interests of his constituents. Nothing else.
He is not ‘sponsored’, he works for no-one else but you, and is immune from undue influence. Because of the loss in public confidence in politicians, arising from expenses scandals, Paul has pledged, if elected, to hand over every single penny of expenses that he receives by being an MP to local charities. Yes, that’s right. Every single penny. No quibbles, no ifs and buts. It is important in this political climate of ‘politics for people who are only in it for themselves’, that Liberal Democrats make it extra clear that we are ‘only in it for you’. |
