Neill Walker is the Reform UK Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Newcastle-under-Lyme. We spoke with Neill about his decision to stand.
“I currently serve as a parish councillor and Vice Chair for Whitmore, I embarked on my journey into local politics. It became evident to me that our community faces systemic challenges”
Can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers?
My name is Neill Walker, married to Julie, with two sons residing locally and two granddaughters attending school in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Regarding Brexit, yes, I did vote for it. However, the promises of Brexit being fully delivered have not materialized. The ongoing restrictions from the EU and other sources have hindered the growth of our country and caused more harm than good. It’s evident that significant change is necessary; it’s time to reform the entire system.
What made you decide to stand for Reform UK
After establishing myself in Baldwins Gate, where I currently serve as a parish councillor and Vice Chair for Whitmore, I embarked on my journey into local politics. It became evident to me that our community faces systemic challenges, including a lack of accountability, transparency, and proactive engagement from local government, the Environment Agency, and Highways. This glaring deficiency has been a source of immense frustration.
Recognising the need for action, I resolved to step up and make a difference. My decision to stand for Reform UK, a party I have been a member of for nearly two years, was born out of a sincere belief that they prioritize the interests of the people. It’s disheartening to witness the shift in priorities of mainstream parties like Labour and the Conservatives, who seem more preoccupied with power struggles than serving the public. The prevalence of broken promises is alarming; in my view, when politicians commit to something, they should follow through. Too often, it seems some view holding a seat in the House of Commons as a entitlement, rather than a responsibility to be fulfilled with integrity and dedication.
“Additionally, I advocate for bringing services back to the local level, creating more well-paid jobs and ensuring greater control over council funds allocation”
You’re the Spokesman for Newcastle-under-Lyme what’s made you decide to represent this area?
Having been rooted in Newcastle-Under-Lyme for many years, I’ve borne witness to its evolution, not all of which has been positive. My connection to this area began at the age of 16, when I participated in the Youth Training Scheme (YTS), honing practical skills such as wiring a plug—skills often underestimated but crucial in daily life.
Despite periods of living and working both domestically and abroad, my wife and I have always felt a magnetic pull back to Newcastle-Under-Lyme. Our decision was solidified by familial ties; our sons reside locally, and our granddaughters attend school in the area. Furthermore, we are ingrained in a community filled with friends and relatives who call this place home.
Raised in Staffordshire, I possess an innate passion for the region, cherishing its heritage and the resilience of its people. This affinity is amplified by my wife’s extensive service as a nurse within the NHS for 35 years, and my brother-in-law’s 38-year tenure as a GP. These familial connections have afforded me insights into the inner workings of the NHS, enriching my understanding of its challenges and triumphs.
“The Iron Market and the market itself hold nostalgic value but have become eyesores. By reducing business rates and imposing charges on online stores, we can support local businesses and breathe new life into the town centre”
What do you see as the big concerns for the constituency and what issues do you hope to champion?
If entrusted with the responsibility to represent the people of Newcastle-Under-Lyme, I am dedicated to initiating meaningful change, focusing on three pivotal areas:
Reform of Local Councils:
I envision local councils characterised by accountability and transparency. To achieve this, I propose regular meetings among portfolio heads and the executive team to openly discuss and review the council’s state and services. Additionally, I advocate for bringing services back to the local level, creating more well-paid jobs and ensuring greater control over council funds allocation. Creating avenues for public challenges will empower communities to voice concerns, particularly regarding planning decisions, ensuring that brownfield sites are prioritized over green spaces for development.
Reform of Quangos – Environment Agency and Highways:
Recent actions by the Environment Agency, particularly regarding Walley Quarry, have raised concerns due to a lack of transparency in decision-making processes. Reforming the agency is imperative. Similarly, our highways system requires urgent attention. Potholes, hazardous pavements, and malfunctioning traffic lights highlight the disjointed nature of our current system. Streamlining operations and prioritizing local teams will allow us to address these issues effectively.
Reform Taxation – Help Rejuvenate our Town:
Our town center has experienced a decline in recent years, losing independent retailers and failing to attract visitors. To reverse this trend, we must encourage the return of independent retailers and increase footfall by creating more attractive amenities. The Iron Market and the market itself hold nostalgic value but have become eyesores. By reducing business rates and imposing charges on online stores, we can support local businesses and breathe new life into the town centre.
By focusing on these reforms, I am committed to revitalising Newcastle-Under-Lyme and ensuring that it remains a vibrant and prosperous community for generations to come.
For those eager to help, how can they get involved in the campaign?
Mike Swadling opposed the motion, and below is his speech delivered to the society. As always with this friendly group the debate was good natured, very well proposed and drew out some great views from the audience.
“It’s my decision, it’s not your effort, it’s not your savings, it’s not the sacrifices you made, it’s not that you took that better paying job you didn’t like, it’s not the investment choices you made that decide what you earn… Does that seem fair?”
You may not have picked up this on the news but, in a stunning coup d’état earlier today, I became Supreme Leader of Price and Wages in the UK. I get to decide wages and pensions of everyone.
It’s my decision, it’s not your effort, it’s not your savings, it’s not the sacrifices you made, it’s not that you took that better paying job you didn’t like, it’s not the investment choices you made that decide what you earn. No, I do, I get to decide it. Does that seem fair? Are you happy with that? Because if you vote for this motion, that’s in effect what you are voting for.
Is that something you want? Or should there be another way of doing this perhaps? We all get to see the end product of these highly paid stars, but we don’t see the years of effort to get there.
I know two people whose sons are excellent footballers. One’s son is in the youth team at a Championship side, the other is aiming for a scholarship to an American University for soccer. We all talk about the high-end wages’ footballers get at the top, but most of these kids won’t make it. They are driving on a Thursday night, Wednesday night, most of the weekend, taking their kids away, taking them to across the country to play for their team. They are putting huge amounts of effort in for their family. These kids are also putting a huge amount of their own effort often whilst taking exams, to try and make it. We just see the end product, to which some will say “isn’t it unfair what they earn”, but we and they don’t see the effort.
Sir Steve Redgrave, the great Olympian, talking about his training said: “It’s all about endurance training. Our training sessions are long and boring. Probably the hardest part was the circuit training in the gym. There were 13-14 different exercises and you had so many reps on each exercise and the peak of that we’d be doing four circuits, so we had over an hour of continuous reps of medium-sized weights, but doing it as quickly as you could. That produced more lactic acid than anything else.”
These people have worked ridiculously hard and that is why they are an elite. They are not putting in a normal amount of effort.
On average, at Real Madrid, footballers train around four to five hours a day. Now, that doesn’t sound too bad as a job. But, they first get there and do 25 to 30 minutes of cardio, followed by some short, intense sprinting drills. That’s sprinting after they’ve done the cardio exercises. They do football tactical drills to improve their understanding with teammates. Then go to the gym for muscle development and strength.
I’m sure we all know of people that were good swimmers at a younger age. People that would be at the swimming pool at six o’clock in the morning before all the schools came in. A huge amount of sacrifice by them and their families. This is not a normal job. This is not a normal level of effort. That’s why these people can end up so well rewarded. And we enjoy their skills.
“The Premier League is big. It’s exported. It’s a fantastic product for our country. In the same season, there was an average of 527,000 viewers per match in the US”
The opening weekend of the Premier League in 2003 with five live matches drew in a total of eight million TV viewers. The Premier League is big. It’s exported. It’s a fantastic product for our country. In the same season, there was an average of 527,000 viewers per match in the US.
A survey in 2017 revealed that more than 40% of the population in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas consider themselves to be soccer fans. Cricket is the world’s second most popular sport, followed by 2.5 million people. Basketball by 2.2 billion people. Tennis has an estimated fan base of a billion people in the world.
Rugby, not a sport you think of as being in that many places, has over 400 million fans worldwide. Basketball over 500 million. Gymnastics, not a sport I would think of as being a spectator sport, has over 100 million fans worldwide. That’s gymnastics. It’s the smaller of one of the big sports, yet still has more people following it across the globe than the populations of Iran, Turkey or Germany.
Sports are huge and the people at the top of them get rewarded to reflect that. But that’s the people that follow it. Who goes along? The average Formula 1 race has over 279,000 people at it. The NFL in America has 69,000, Bundesliga, 42,000, Premier League, averages over 40,000 people in attendance, Major League Basketball, 29,000, Rugby League in Australia, 19,000 and the European Rugby Champions Cup, club rugby, 16,000. These are people that are willing to physically attend and pay and turn up.
Even if their average ticket was £30 (and it will be more), that means the average Formula 1 event brings in £8.3 million. The average club at Rugby Union, which is at the lower end, brings in half a million pounds. This is a huge amount of money.
Of course, the real money is in TV. The Super Bowl gets 124 million viewers, and Champions League, 380 million. The Women’s FIFA World Cup, 1.1 billion. Women’s football, wasn’t well known 10 years ago, and 1.1 billion people watched their world cup. The Men’s World Cup will have over 3 billion viewers. That’s a lot of people turning on their TVs, and that, of course, generates a lot of revenue.
“There are 380 matches in an English Premier League season. It generates £3.2 billion in TV income. Assuming ticket prices are only £30, average matchday income in this country between TV and attendance, is £8.2 million”
The current Premier League TV deal, brings in £1.57 billion in domestic TV rights and £1.64 billion in overseas TV rights. Our Premier League, with all these overpaid stars, or supposedly overpaid stars, is generating £1.6 billion in external revenue for this country. Wimbledon, the tennis, brings in $44 million in UK TV and $53 million in US TV, and, of course, there are other markets. The Tokyo Olympics brought in $3.1 billion in TV income. IPL cricket in India brings in over £1 billion per year in TV.
All these viewers, all these people turning up, all this income, where should the money go if it’s not the performers? Who should get that money if it’s not the people generating that entertainment?
There are 380 matches in an English Premier League season. It generates £3.2 billion in TV income. Assuming ticket prices are only £30, average matchday income in this country between TV and attendance, is £8.2 million. Assuming 40 players, now there are only 22 on the field, but you’ve got subs, you’ve got a coach, you’ve got a manager, you talk about the people actually providing that entertainment, that’s £206,000 per person.
The average EPL salary works out at £94,000 per match. If anything, you might argue, these players are underpaid. There’s £206,000 each they’re bringing in, but they’re only paid £94,000 of it. Where does the other £112,000 go? It goes to youth teams, reserve teams, women’s football, all subsidised by the men’s game. Less than half goes to the people who actually provide the entertainment. I’ve not included sponsorship and not added other matchday income. Even more money not going to the players.
If you think elite sportsmen and women are grossly overpaid, with all the income that these sports generate, I want to ask you, why do you think that tennis star Coco Gauff didn’t deserve her $6.7 million in winnings last year? Why do you think that Simone Biles, the gymnast, didn’t deserve her $8.5 million in sponsorship and endorsements. Why did she not deserve that? You’ve got to be able to answer that question. Who should have got the $1.4 million in prize money that golfer Nelly Korda raised if it wasn’t her?
Why do you want to deny all of these elite female athletes, after all their years of sacrifice, with the hundreds of millions of people that view, and the hundreds of millions of income that comes in, their fair share?
I also wonder what it is about sports that people object to. Top models shift clothes. The highest paid model of last year was Kendall Jenner, who generated $40 million worth of income. Chrissy Teigen generated $39 million. They shifted clothes. Someone decided to pay them. Why shouldn’t they get paid for it if they generate someone else’s revenue?
The top musicians last year, Taylor Swift, played 56 shows and earned $305 million. Beyonce, 46 shows, earning $145 million. Ed Sheeran, 41 shows, earning $110 million. If these people pay to sold out venues for people who want to pay, and nobody’s forcing anyone to be there, why shouldn’t the artists get the reward if they’re the reason people turn up? I ask again, if they don’t get it, who should?
Elon Musk has made $250 billion through his businesses and inventions; Henry Ford would have been worth over $200 billion in today’s money. James Dyson, has made $22 billion. If they didn’t get the money for what they invented, and few people would deny inventors earning the benefit of their craft, of their ideas, then who should? If you think they should get it, what is it about sports people that you want to deny from their toil? Why are they less deserving of their income than, say, academics, surgeons, actors or entrepreneurs? What makes them less deserving than anyone else?
“When you artificially hold down a price, you create problems. You create problems with investment. You don’t satisfy the demand, and through lower prices you may create more demand”
As with anything, if you cap the price, you simply get more demand, with the profit to be made by the touts who will suck up the tickets in between. They will be making the profit rather than the sports stars. What is it about the touts that you think is more deserving than the people playing on the field? This isn’t just true in sports. Scotland introduced rent controls for two years. They’re just about rolling off now. It led to a reduction in supply of rented accommodation, and a reduction in investment in properties, and basically increased the time it took to get a new property from 12 to 16 weeks.
When you artificially hold down a price, you create problems. You create problems with investment. You don’t satisfy the demand, and through lower prices you may create more demand, but someone makes a profit that isn’t the person that’s renting out the property, or indeed the person that wants to rent it in the first place. In New York, you famously have rent-controlled apartments. All too often the official tenant sublets. A middleman, not the landlord, not the actual tenant. Someone who does very little, and who doesn’t deserve it is making the money.
When you have an artificially low price, the money doesn’t go to the fans, because the fans still want to go. In fact, if you hold the price down, more fans want to go, and the tickets will be sold on the black market, and that will be more money for middlemen.
To quote the economist Milton Friedman, “We economists don’t know much, but we do know how to create a shortage. If you want to create a shortage of tomatoes, for example, just pass a law that retailers can’t sell tomatoes for more than two cents per pound. Instantly you’ll have a tomato shortage.”
And to paraphrase him, ‘Price ceilings, which prevent prices from exceeding a certain maximum, cause shortages. Price floors, which prohibit prices below a certain minimum, cause surpluses, at least for a time.’
What happens with that surplus? What happens with that shortage? As the economist Thomas Sowell says, “Price controls almost invariably produce black markets, where prices are not only higher than the legally permitted prices, but also higher than they would be in a free market, since the legal risks must also be compensated. While small-scale black markets may function in secrecy, large-scale black markets usually require bribes to officials to look the other way.”
“This is what the motion calls for, if we don’t pay the players, if we hold down prices artificially as a means of not paying the players, you just make touting more widespread”
If anyone has brought tickets from a tout, they are not normally what you would describe as nice people. They’re not people that make you think, ‘I’m happy doing business with them’.
While small-scale black markets may function in secrecy, large-scale black markets usually require bribes for officials to look the other way. As an example, anyone knows anything about getting tickets to the FA Cup final, will know there are a huge number of tickets given away to people involved in football. They all too often get sold on the black market.
There are always touts around the game, otherwise they wouldn’t do this. This is what the motion calls for, if we don’t pay the players, if we hold down prices artificially as a means of not paying the players, you just make touting more widespread.
“When football had a maximum wage, it wasn’t the working-class heroes who received the money. No, those lads, had second jobs”
When Rugby Union was an amateur sport, players had a habit of getting great jobs. We used to have players not being fairly paid but they often got great jobs in the city, and people always wondered why.
When football had a maximum wage, it wasn’t the working-class heroes who received the money. No, those lads, had second jobs. The club owners got the money, or the people with good connections got the money. The people that knew how to make the system work for them, they got the money.
To quote Thomas Sowell again, “there are no solutions, only trade-offs”.
“after years of hard work and sacrifice, the sports stars provide the entertainment and inspiration. Why do you here think you should pass judgement on how much these sports stars should earn?”
In the tens of thousands people attend, in the hundreds of millions they watch, billions are generated in revenue. I make this challenge to you, after years of hard work and sacrifice, the sports stars provide the entertainment and inspiration. Why do you here think you should pass judgement on how much these sports stars should earn?
Summary
Sports brings people together as Nelson Mandela once said, “Sport has the power to change the world, it has the power to inspire.” “It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.”
We’ve spoken about the sacrifices elite sports people make. They are different, that’s why they are elite. Martina Navratilova clarifies the difference in mentality they need to have in saying, “Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost”.
Finally, to quote Muhammad Ali, “It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”
And why I ask you, shouldn’t he get well paid for it?
We choose from thousands of products in a supermarket or online, and often own multiple electronic consumer goods. It’s not uncommon for people to catch multiple flights a year, chosen from many competing airlines. Free markets are everywhere and have transformed our lives. Yet many have never been more cynical about what they deliver, or keener to have the government interfere in their function.
Join us on Wednesday 19th June for our drinks and conversation with Matthew Lesh the Director of Public Policy and Communications at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).
Founded in 1955 the IEA is an educational charity and free market think tank. Their mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society. Matthew is a columnist for CityAM, and a regular writer for publications such as The Times, The Telegraph and The Spectator. He is also a Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute and Institute of Public Affairs. You can find Matthew on X/Twitter and see more at his website.
For drinks, a conversation and Q&A about Matthew, the IEA, and how we sell economic freedom, come along Wednesday 19th June at 7pm
This is part of our #ThirdWednesday drinks and events, we hold these in association with Dick Delingpole’s #ThirdWednesday Libertarian drinks club, and POLITICS in PUBS a group of people from across the political spectrum who value the freedom to question and to speak openly.
Join us on Wednesday 15th May for our drinks and conversation with Elizabeth Cooper, Reform UK candidate for Carshalton and Wallington.
Reform UK are consistently third in polling for the next General Election, they are also in the midst of announcing candidates for our area. The newly announced candidate for Carshalton and Wallington is Elizabeth Cooper who will be joining us in May for an interview, Q&A and drinks.
Come along Wednesday 15th May at 7pm to join in.
This is part of our #ThirdWednesday drinks and events, we hold these in association with Dick Delingpole’s #ThirdWednesday Libertarian drinks club, and POLITICS in PUBS a group of people from across the political spectrum who value the freedom to question and to speak openly.
