I'm standing as the SDP's Candidate in Coventry South.

Full statement

I grew up in Earlsdon in Coventry before qualifying as a Civil Engineer.

I’ve built railways, factories, skyscrapers, thousands of apartments as well as 12 centres for 25,000 refugees in Bosnia during the Civil War.

This is the first time I have ever gotten involved with politics and the reason is that I am not willing to accept the country we are leaving for our children.

I’ve built & invested in several successful companies including Europe's largest online psychiatry business which treats 200,000 patients & employs more than 500 staff.

The NHS’s dedicated medical staff are held back by bloated, inefficient management & bureaucracy and there is massive room for improvement. I've seen similar bureaucracy in very large private sector companies - it's not public bad, private good - it's about leadership.

My Dad Helped found Cardinal Newman School in 1969 & worked with anyone who’d help Coventry Kids get a good start in life and fought Militant Tendency to stop them using pupils as a political football. Mum was a teacher at St Thomas More’s & taught thousands of kids to read & write.

I want to build on my family’s legacy and help Coventry rebuild its high paying, highly skilled economy.

We need an MP whose focus is on Coventry not Gaza, On affordable housing & cheap energy not Net Zero, On bringing hope not promoting despair. On growing the economy for all. Above all, Coventry needs someone pragmatic and competent who can get things done. We need to build on our strengths in manufacturing and relentlessly lobby, badger & cajole central and regional government to invest in Coventry so that new businesses are attracted to the City.

If elected my focus will be to bring high paying jobs to Coventry. The constituency has a number of huge employers like JLR and Warwick University and I want to explore how the people of Coventry can sell them more goods & services and secure more jobs and apprenticeships.

We need to help prepare the car industry locally to take advantage of the shift from Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) to Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV’s). Jaguar are shifting their entire brand to BEV in the next two years & the supply chain in Coventry has to be ready.

This is not a party political issue - If Coventry and our businesses aren't ready for this tectonic shift we will witness a jobs catastrophe with yet more well paying jobs disappearing from the City. We need competent people in leadership roles to prepare for this rapid change.

The City Council has wisely approved a planning application to build a 5m sq.ft Battery GigaFactory on the site of Coventry Airport right next to the National Battery Catapult Centre. However, right now there is no tenant for the site as JLR are building their battery factory in Somerset.

I want to encourage Tesla, the dominant player in the electric vehicle market, to build their second European site in Coventry. Their Berlin factory is the same size as the proposed Coventry GigaFactory and already employs 12,500 people & will ultimately employ 40,000 people. For Full transparency I have been a Tesla shareholder for many years.

To support this effort in 2022, as a shareholder and long before I became involved with the SDP I established a Twitter page #TeslatoCoventry in an effort to highlight the capability of both the supply chain & the workforce in Coventry. We need to galvanise leaders of all political parties from all over our region to try to persuade Tesla. We also need to encourage the Government to incentivise them or any viable alternative manufacturer to take on the task of building this huge factory which will secure the future of mass vehicle manufacturing in Coventry for the next three decades. This is beyond normal politics.

Moving on we desperately need to think about our poor town centre. The City Plan for the renewal of the town centre has to be accelerated. Every weekend Coventry shoppers flock to Solihull & Birmingham to spend their money outside our City which makes us all poorer

The City Centre needs to be safe, welcoming and friendly to encourage the people of Coventry to spend their money in their own city. There should be a task force made up of retailers, the council, as well as the police, entertainers, musicians and other groups to liven it up.

We need to bring forward the redevelopment plans to improve the experience of shopping and leisure in the City Centre including opening up the river Sherbourne to create a riverside route after 60 years of being buried under concrete - let’s hold an architectural competition!

This could put Coventry back on the map and signal our renaissance. Our current MP, Ms Zarah Zultana spends too much time whining about resources when, in the modern world, the key differentiator is resourcefulness. Microsoft didn't lose out to Google in 'Search' because of a lack of money.

Let's talk about education - something my family has a long association with in Coventry. I want to create a centre of excellence for bright young mathematicians in Coventry at the University of Warwick or Coventry University modelled on King's College Maths School in London.

We will beg, steal (metaphorically) or borrow to set up this school. Mathematics is the battleground of future prosperity & mathematical geniuses pop up randomly in the population so we need to search and nurture our talent and encourage a love of mathematics.

We're on the cusp of a new age. With the dawn of AI every job that involves repetition, white or blue collar, is at risk. Coventry youngsters need to think about & understand the implications of AI from experts and we'll 'recruit' volunteers to go into schools to explain.

Finally we need to fully engage our two world class Universities anew and try to integrate them and their students in the life of the City instead of being parallel worlds existing side by side without mixing. We simply don't exploit this giant resource as much as we should.

For example, we could encourage the parents of students to visit the City on Carnival day in June & hold Civic Award Ceremony to recognise those students who contribute the most to the life of the City at almost zero cost. It would bring wealthy folks into the town to spend money and encourage superbly qualified students to build their startups in the City.

I want to throw a spotlight on The Coventry Charity Football Cup which is the largest sporting charity in the West Midlands & Warwickshire in terms of money donated to local charities. They do amazing work and they deserve more recognition.

I want to try to bring the World Irish Dance Championship to Coventry in 2026 - this is a mass participation sport and has strong links to Coventry's Irish community. Again, we need to remind ourselves of who we are and celebrate our God given talents.

November 2040 will be the 100th anniversary of the destruction of Coventry by the Luftwaffe and I want to start an organisation now to commemorate the raid, its victims and how the town rebuilt itself and rose, Phoenix style, from the ashes.

I want to build on the work of THE Cathedral & plan an International commemoration on 14/11/40 focus on reconciliation & renewal with towns like Guernica, Nanking, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Shanghai, London, Volgograd, Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo and Hiroshima. We will twin with these towns and create exchange programs to give Coventry youngsters the chance to to experience life in other countries and cultures.

November 2040 is 16 years away. That is our target date for the renewal & rebuilding of Coventry. We'll use this date as an incentive to organise and galvanise ourselves. We should aim to make this a giant international party for our city. But we have to look our best!

Kids in Coventry should understand the proud history of Coventry and realise that renewal and recreation are part of our legacy - we can pick our city off the floor and rebuild our economy again.

We're probably too small to win the Olympic Games but the rebuilding of Coventry and the hosting of a giant international festival of peace and reconciliation is something we are uniquely placed to do.This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to showcase our City to the World.

Coventry has always had a positive and optimistic outlook and has always embraced the future. Our current MP is well meaning but inexperienced and has no vision for the City. She doesn’t understand the process of wealth creation. She can only focus on dividing up the pie. Because she has never had a real job, or at least not one that most folks in Coventry would recognise as real, she always falls back on sound bites & complaining, tweeting 40 times more about Gaza than Coventry.

By contrast our campaign is all about gumption & ‘Can do’ spirit. We grew up in Coventry and love the City. Like the Phoenix on our coat of arms, we know that Coventry will rise again and that its best days still lie ahead.

We’re going to fight for every single vote over the next six weeks and if you believe in what I do then why not join us. We’re going to try to speak to every voter, knock on every door and hold public meetings and we would love for you to help us. I'm available to talk to any group that wants to hear our message including other parties. I'll speak in Churches, Gurdwaras, Mosques, Working Mens & Irish Clubs in fact anywhere we can to solve the problems of Coventry.

I'll come talk to you & your colleagues at your place of work, your schools or colleges, your family & friends over dinner and will happily help wash up if you have a spare bed for the night. Coventry is my home from home where all my happiest memories were made and it breaks my heart to see it struggling.

I've been politically homeless for the best part of ten years. But when our choice is between such bland alternatives I got to the point where I wasn't willing to accept the country we are leaving to our children.

July 4th, Independence day, is a profound date in history that marks the day when one group of Englishmen became Americans because they finally understood that their 'betters' didn't deserve their loyalty and that they must break with them and start afresh.

I'm encouraging people who have tried the Tories and tried Labour and know deep down that they don't have the answers for the dangerous world that we live in to rebel against them and to join our insurgency. Please Vote SDP in Coventry South on election day.

If you want to support us then please reach out to me on Twitter, Facebook or email: Alastair.mellon@SDP.org.uk. We have a million tasks to perform and not much time to do them but we'll figure out the details as we go along using good 'ol fashioned gumption.