Following a long association with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (including a two-year period on the organisation’s National Executive in the late 1980s), most of my political activity has been focused on the Labour Party. I chaired the Holborn & St Pancras Constituency Party between 1993 and 1995 and was selected as Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate in Epsom & Ewell at the age of 26. In the 1997 General Election, I achieved a 12.4% swing against the Conservatives in the constituency, pushing Labour into second place for the first time in a generation. Four years later, I contested the seat of Kingston & Surbiton in the suburbs of London - a tough campaign in a closely-fought Lib Dem/Tory marginal. I am a member of the Fabian Society and a former Executive Committee member of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform.
Travel and fact-finding
In the mid-90s, I travelled to Romania under the auspices of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to teach aspiring politicians about democratic government. I have also held meetings with politicians and officials at the Headquarters of both NATO and the European Parliament in Brussels.
Writing
I've previously published articles on a variety of issues including propaganda, the branding of warfare and the MMR vaccination programme on the website of the Source Public Management Journal. You can find them by using the site search facility at
www.sourceuk.net/main.html
