Category: Alastair Mellon

“I sat down in February ‘24 to begin to discuss how we would go about things. The SDP in Coventry did not exist at that time”

Some reflections on the 2024 campaign. Like many of you, I’ve bemoaned the capabilities of many of our MP’s. The nadir for me came in 2019 when Jeremy Corbyn parachuted a young lady with several years’ experience working at Primark into the safe Labour seat of Coventry South

In 2023 I met William Clouston of the SDP and over the next 12 months we had dozens of conversations and I became convinced that standing on the side lines was no longer an option. My wife was concerned about potential reputational damage as UK politics appears like a piranha tank.  But around January 2024, I decided that I was going to take the plunge. My oldest friend and now parliamentary agent, Paul Crilly, and I sat down in February ‘24 to begin to discuss how we would go about things. The SDP in Coventry did not exist at that time.

Our politics were moderate. We both believed that if you worked 40 hours a week 46 weeks a year you want to be able to afford a modest home of your own. We felt that the government should be competent and not expand its scope beyond what it was capable of delivering successfully.  

“As we are experienced construction professionals, neither of us can wrap our heads around the ludicrous costs and time delays of major UK Infrastructure projects like HS2 and Hinckley C”

We’ve both experienced terrible healthcare with the NHS but continue to believe in the principle of a single payer, free at the point of use health service. Neither of us care if it’s a black cat or a white cat so long as it catches mice – we hold no theological views on the NHS.  As we are experienced construction professionals, neither of us can wrap our heads around the ludicrous costs and time delays of major UK Infrastructure projects like HS2 and Hinckley C. We are convinced we can do better. We see massive waste on big sites which no politician discusses.

We both believe that natural monopolies belong in the state sector as regulatory capture is unavoidable given the asymmetry of resources (I.e. accountants and lawyers) between the owners and the regulator. Begging the French to build our nuclear power stations is embarrassing.  We were on opposite sides of the Brexit referendum, but both agreed that the result should be respected.

My own view is that with the rapid acceleration of technologically driven change it is even more important that our government is flexible and responsive to voters. And that brings me back to our representatives who are, in aggregate, simply not up to the job. Would you hire our current MP for any serious job? I doubt it. We may not win this time, but we will put down the roots of a winning organisation having gone from 0 to 15 volunteers.

“Just by being on the campaign trail and being visible has changed the calculus for people who are trapped in the Labour party but who vehemently oppose many of its trendy shibboleths”

After the holidays, we’ll start to build for the next phase. We’ll build our social media presence across all four major platforms. We’ll create a Coventry wide SDP structure, contribute to the creation of national policy and locally we’ll recruit and start to train our members. 

Just by being on the campaign trail and being visible has changed the calculus for people who are trapped in the Labour party but who vehemently oppose many of its trendy shibboleths. I would be disappointed if we are not 50 people by Christmas and that is just the beginning.  The public has responded positively to our common-sense proposals. The British people are fair minded and generous, but they have limits and those are being tested. They want cheaper housing, cheaper energy, more training, better paid and higher skilled jobs.

“Many, far too many, maybe as many as 20-25% have given up on politics altogether. This is an indictment of our political class and our elites who’ve become tone deaf to the messages sent”

Having held more than 4000 one-to-one conversations my assessment is that the public want an effective state that can get things done and struck off the ‘to do’ list. They are sympathetic towards LGB rights but reject broader identity politics and don’t want to be told what to think. 

Many, far too many, maybe as many as 20-25% have given up on politics altogether. This is an indictment of our political class and our elites who’ve become tone deaf to the messages sent with increasing vigour by the population, contrast this with Denmark.

Politics which offers cheap energy through a new fleet of British designed, British built nuclear power stations regulated through an ‘underwriter certification’ system rather than the unfit for purpose ALARA principle will lay the groundwork for a renaissance of UK manufacturing.

Just last week Britain’s richest man and our leading industrialist Sir Jim Radcliffe warned of the deindustrialisation of Europe due to costly energy. We can’t run an industrial society without cheap dispatchable energy and if it’s not to be fossil fuels, then it has to be nuclear. We are proposing that a new school of Nuclear Engineering, Design and Regulation is established at Warwick University in Coventry South to lead our efforts to deliver rapidly on this urgently needed capacity. We need to treat this like the Mulberry Harbour or the Manhattan Project.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) will take 20% of US electricity by 2027 and if we want to stay competitive, we’ll need to INCREASE our grid capacity and ensure its stability. We’re currently co-leading the world in AGI but if we don’t have cheap energy, we’ll become an also ran.

In the 1950s, 60s and 70’s both parties delivered 500k homes a year for a population of 50m souls. We need to get the state back into building houses and simultaneously getting a grip on mass immigration without which no amount of building will eliminate the backlog for 75 million souls. Building creates British jobs, British apprenticeships and British high-weight, low-value products that need to be produced locally. This plus cheap energy will help spur our re-industrialisation. Young people with no stake in society won’t abide by or respect our norms or rules.

They need affordable housing and energy to start families and prevent demographic collapse which in used to justify more immigration or Human Quantitative Easing (HQE) but ignores the externalities bourn overwhelmingly by working class British communities. There’s a general acceptance of controlled immigration that makes us richer but real anger at the mess we’re currently in which has delivered the population of six Birmingham’s in ten years.

I got into this because I’m not willing to accept the country we are leaving to our children. I hope and pray we are not too late.

God bless Coventry!

These reflections were originally published on X/Twitter at https://x.com/mellonsdp6741/status/1808455767013384583?s=46

What is it like running for Parliament? I’m a first time candidate standing for the SDP in the constituency of Coventry South I’ve taken six weeks off work and I’m entirely self funded. I sleep in a 12 m² student accommodation room and haven’t seen my wife for 2 weeks. My opponent Zarah Sultana ships in around 100 Labour Party volunteers from Manchester, London, Carlisle, Birmingham every weekend.

“The central plank of my campaign is to focus on bringing high skilled, high value added, high paying, jobs back to the city of Coventry”

FedEx lost 10,000 of my 62,000 leaflets and tonight we discovered the post office are delivering my leaflets all over Coventry North. BUT… We talked to 200 to 300 Coventry voters every day and today was our best day ever in terms of the positivity of the response.

The central plank of my campaign is to focus on bringing high skilled, high value added, high paying, jobs back to the city of Coventry because “a rising tide lifts all boats”. Our current MP, Ms Sultana, has used the platform afforded to her by the voters of Coventry South to focus on Gaza with 87 tweets about Gazza to 6 about Coventry in Q1 2024.

“Bit by bit, we have put together a group of volunteers who join me at weekends and evenings after work to support my campaign. I spend 10 to 12 hours a day in one-to-one conversations throughout the constituency”

Having held nearly 2,000 individual conversations, not one single person has raised this issue with me in Coventry South. The local BBC radio station is only interested in talking to me about Gaza despite me pointing out to them that BBC Question Time in Coventry on the first day of the campaign demonstrated that Gaza was not on the mind of Coventry voters.

Bit by bit, we have put together a group of volunteers who join me at weekends and evenings after work to support my campaign. I spend 10 to 12 hours a day in one-to-one conversations throughout the constituency of Coventry South and I think I have a good feel for voters want.

Some of my volunteers struggle with the level of anger and frustration expressed by voters. It can be very raw and very real and not everybody can cope with it. I am absolutely convinced that the mass of elite opinion especially in London is totally disconnected from the majority views throughout the country. Labour support is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Reform is on the lips of almost every white male over 45 years old. Nigel Farage has tapped into and reflected the anger of voters but I believe has no compelling answers. The SDP are committed to a long march across three electoral cycles to build a mass national party that can offer voters a real alternative that the positively want to vote for rather than the least hated.

“This week I’ve started to receive dozens of different manifestos from organisations and pressure groups seeking my endorsement. I have been absolutely clear that my overwhelming focus is to drive the economic well-being of Coventry”

Our 122 Candidates represent a 500% increase from 2019 and we aim to field 350 Candidates at the next election. I know that Solihull next door to Coventry will be the next centre for the SDP growth in the West Midlands as we have three volunteers coming almost daily to help us in Coventry South.

Standing for parliament is a trip! This week I’ve started to receive dozens of different manifestos from organisations and pressure groups seeking my endorsement. I have been absolutely clear that my overwhelming focus is to drive the economic well-being of Coventry.  Consequently, I am being very sparing with my responses as I do not want to dilute my message. When our family returned to Coventry in 1969 wages in Coventry were significantly above the UK average and they are now significantly below. House prices were four times average earnings now they are 13 times.

Professor Danny Dorling of Oxford University maps Coventry to the north of the north-south divide but to my mind the line goes directly through the centre of the city. Parts of the south are still doing ok but the north is in a hell of a state. If we could get 50 great new entrepreneurs to set up in Coventry, it would be enough to kickstart the economy and address the physical deterioration of the city.

If I had one wish for Coventry it would be for Tesla or BYD Company to set up the at the site of Coventry Airport where a 5 million square foot planning consent for a battery electric vehicle plant has already been granted, wisely in my view, by Coventry City Council.  So my request to X/Twitter world is to tweet this article to Elon Musk and Tesla or BYD Company to raise the profile of this great City and hope that we can rebuild our volume manufacturing business.  For full transparency, I’ve been a Tesla shareholder since 2016.

“Big parties can afford to fund lots of the expenses and you have big teams of supporters helping. There is a tiny pool of people who can do what I am doing or attempting to do outside of the two dominant parties”

I discussed with a friend today how many people could take six weeks unpaid leave? Assuming there are 35 million voters we figured that maybe 3% maximum which gives a figure of 1,050,000. We then calculated that may be 5% of these remaining people could afford the estimated £7,500 of costs which cut down the pool to 52,500 potential candidates. We then estimated what percentage of those remaining could bear the anger, resentment and contempt of the disillusioned voters and we thought it was as little as 10% leaving approximately 5250. We then asked how many people in our Venn diagram would map and fit our three criteria and it left us with 525 people (10%). This is the problem the small parties face. Big parties can afford to fund lots of the expenses and you have big teams of supporters helping. There is a tiny pool of people who can do what I am doing or attempting to do outside of the two dominant parties. Not many people realise that the vast majority of reform candidates are paper candidates, who will never go to the constituency and are candidates in name only.

This article is based on an original tweet tread at https://x.com/MellonSdp6741/status/1802851404417036587.

You can find more about Alastair at https://croydonconstitutionalists.uk/alastair-mellon-sdp/ and contact / find him at [email protected] on X/Twitter at @MellonSdp6741 and on YouTube at Alastair Mellon SDP Coventry South.