What I do
I am Ken Charman, Steve’s election agent. Steve is partially sighted and there are hundreds of pages of guidelines on rules, promotional leaflets, security etc, so I do a lot of reading. I ensure he follows the Electoral Commission guidelines and help with organising his campaign.
I am a serious person
I recently retired as CEO of a Unilever tech start-up. Before that I ran a number of successful tech start-ups. I have two degrees, (one from Oxford in Major Project Management) and was a visiting senior research fellow at King’s College London (War Studies), visiting fellow at Newcastle University (Health Inequality) and I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Why a serious person, like me, is voting for Steve Cotten and you should too.
In my career I worked with many MPs, senior politicians and business leaders. Sorry, but almost without exception I found them vain, self-serving and out of touch. When I look at the UK I am appalled at the state of the nation, The roads aren’t fit to drive on, the NHS is dead on its legs, London is unsafe, we depend far too much on imports, our banks, phone companies, water companies, energy companies cynically exploit their customers and never answer the phone, huge tech companies pay no tax and wash their hands of the harm they cause to society, the rich – who include bankers, politicians, business leaders, celebrities and even footballers have lost sight of what life is like for normal citizens. The nation is in a shameful state and the blame for this rests with the UK establishment and adversarial party political system, which means just changing government from one party to another won’t make any difference. Fourteen years of the Conservatives has left us in just as dreadful a condition as fourteen years of Labour. There is no party worth voting for. I want Steve to win and go to Westminster and tell them to stop playing politics, and work together to clear up the mess they have all made.. or we will send more people like Steve (no offence mate).
Is Steve a joke candidate?
Steve likes jokes and he makes me laugh, but he is not a joke candidate. He has a lot of practical wisdom and is a good listener. He has promised to support policies that voters have requested. The technology to give voters more direct power can easily be adopted. Politicians should stop forcing their out of touch ideas on voters.
What is Steve like?
I have known him for ten years. He is eccentric and outrageous. He insults me (and everyone else). So what? It is not malicious. It is called humour. He runs a pub. I don’t get “offended”, I insult him back. Isn’t that what normal people do? He doesn’t have a degree, he learnt a trade, he doesn’t have a huge pension or a big house, but he runs the best pub in Devon. It is the centre of our community. He might upset a few people but he is sound.
What if he is elected?
I hope Steve will take his huge personality to Westminster and put the word around, in his own special way, that the country has lost patience with the lot of them. Voters in Devon have nothing to lose. No matter how we vote, Labour will get in. So, take a free shot. Make a protest. As a serious person, I am happy to propose and support a truly independent and disruptive candidate against a broken, rotten system.