I left school at 16 with two O levels and joined The General Post Office (now BT) as an apprentice.

Full statement

On completion of my apprenticeship I applied to join a research and development section of the company and was accepted. It was during my employment in this section of the company that BT financed me to study for my BA degree and eventually my MSc degree.

I took early retirement at age 49 and retrained as a plumber. I started a plumbing company and sold the company after 8 years. For the final 2 years of my working-life I returned to Basingstoke College to teach others plumbing and heating skills.

I would regard myself as conservative and always voted accordingly but unfortunately during the last few years I find myself politically homeless as the party has completely lost Its way and in my opinion can no longer be regarded as conservative. After 13 years of this government the country seems to be completely broken and no one in the administration appears to have a clue how to fix the problems.

This is the reason I decided to join the Reform Party in the hope that together we can try to bring the country back to some kind of normality.

My first, priority would be to fix our borders and make them secure. The second would be to reform the health service to make it more efficient to a point where it’s no longer a money pit. This could be achieved by reducing the bureaucracy and top-heavy management structures within the organization and this would free up funds to provide more front-line staff. My third priority would be to drastically reduce the size of government.

There are many other outstanding problems that require fixing such as getting people who can work off benefits and back into the workforce, increasing the number of personnel in our armed forces and investing in our energy infrastructure such as research into fusion nuclear power as well as ordinary nuclear power as wind and solar will not keep the lights on.

I would like to see an end to this crazy dash to a green future and go for a more sensible process that allows a gradual progression as and when the technology becomes available. I would also like to see the education system changed to prevent our children from being indoctrinated with the woke ideology and other nonsense that they are being taught today and get back to a basic education.

Finally, I feel that we need to get back to government by consent and pull back from the slide to a dictatorial style government which appears to have happened over recent years. It should not be forgotten that if you represent your constituents in Parliament you should not be dictating to them but representing their views.