Writing my first novel - the how, the why and the when

Each generation has an era defining time. The summer of love of 1968, the Arab Spring, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Ours wasn't a summer of love though, more an autumn of fear. 

In 2008 it felt like the world was truly turning upside down. I can remember vividly the day when my savings account in a bank in Iceland was wiped out. How friends saw their businesses turn to dust. When our advertisers pulled plugs on everything.

I sat and watched it from the editor's chair, hearing stories of real drama, real fear and that feeling that this was a seismic, epoch changing time. This was our time and my novel, out now, is my attempt to tell this amazing tale.

I've always wanted to write creatively. Journalism is great, but sometimes news journalism doesn't give you that sense of perspective. As time went on and my job was more managerial, I had fewer and fewer outlets for that long form, investigative, exploratory story telling of human struggle. The kind of thing Michael Lewis is the absolute master at. And the kind of thing that if we managed to do three of them a year we'd enter them for awards, creating the illusion we do this all the time. 

But I also quite like comedy writing, but have never done anything about it, despite having always knocked out the funnies page. Way back when I was a student at the University of Manchester I used to contribute stories to the Mancunion diary page at the back - often about Derek Draper, if I remember rightly. Wherever I worked, I always fell into the "back page" role rather well. I also developed fictitious characters to tell truths: Arty Tosh, Corporate Raider and Lucretia De Bitch.

In the course of my time I also wrote a column called Roger Cashman. He was a grotesque caricature of a greedy and sexist Cheshire businessman. He became a minor sensation on Twitter, even finding a nemesis in his wife, Doris, which was absolutely nothing to do with me. 

For a while I kept it a secret that it was me. The chairman of the board highlighted it as his favourite part of the magazine and I had to come clean. We'd even get occasional letters of complaint, but more questions as to whether he was for real. My reply was always that he may or may not be real, but that everything he said was true. 

But Roger Cashman is dead. He disappeared over the edge of his boat off Puerto Banus in 2011, only for someone to try and scam his Twitter account for personal gain in 2013. He is dead. Long live Roger. Another truth about business, cowardice and crime.

And so it is with my first novel - 40 by 40. The premise is simple. Here's our guy, rich, bored, on the brink of greatness and huge wealth in order to stave off a mid-life crisis. Setting himself up for a life of reality TV stardom, more easy money, sex on the side and of course the dalliance with football club ownership. You know that moment in Goodfellas, at the end of act two, when Ray Liotta's character has it nailed: "We were wise guys, Goodfellas, we had it all." Well, that's my central character of Roger at the start.

WARNING. Roger Cashmore is appalling. A monster. From the first words - "You can't go wrong with sick white children" - the calculating cynicism of charitable giving writ large - to his dismissal of his wife's concerns, his self-centred avarice, lack of loyalty and the essential split personality - wanting to be taken seriously by those he fears most. All of it makes him hard to love. But I hope you will end up rooting for him, hoping for a redemption of some kind, even if he doesn't get what he wants. 

I know I did so with Jordan Belfort in Wolf of Wall Street, Steven Stelfox in Kill Your Friends and John Self in Money.

The jeopardy is the real world. This is 2008, we know what's going to happen in April when the tax rate changes. In September when Lehman Brothers crashes. In October when the UK government has to bail out RBS. And when Man United win the Champions League Final in Moscow in May, or when Manchester City get taken over by Arabs in September. That much we know, but where were you? How did those real events make you feel? Oh, and who do you think was behind Panacea in Alderley Edge getting burnt down?

I also wanted to weave in real people, real situations I witnessed - MIPIM, a conference where Jon Moulton spelled it out, a decadent birthday party I went to as the world crumbled. No real person in the book has words put in their mouth that they didn't say, or is placed in a situation that misrepresents them. They are as part of the physical backdrop as San Carlo Restaurant in Manchester, the Europa Hotel in Belfast and the Alderley Bar and Grill.

The one exception I ought to clarify is Simon Binns. Part of Manchester's business scene at the time was a spiky newspaper called Crains. To airbrush that from the picture of the year would be dishonest, much as I despised it at the time. With Simon's help I actually wrote a scene with him in it, having lunch and interviewing the main character. Although Roger is phenomenally rude about Simon, I think I know him well enough to know he'd take the confected affront at his nosiness and contrary opinions as a compliment. It was certainly intended as one.

The book isn't just a ramble through the archives either. I spent a bit of time talking to people who dealt with builders, helicopter leases, TV companies, banks, lawyers, phone hackers and football club owners. Explaining how quite complex financial instruments worked, but also how criminal gangs sometimes operated. I couldn't resist weaving in a reference to the Learning Journey I did to California.

In the credits I do thank the following fine folk for helping me with the research: Nick Carter, Alec Craig, Andy Shaw, Steve Hoyles and Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5. But there are many many more.

There will be inevitable speculation about who the characters are based on. None of them are a direct lift. None. Some are just inventions, some are amalgams of at least two or three people. An acquisitive Indian food conglomerate called Chunky's doesn't leave much to the imagination. But it's a work of fiction - a way of telling a truth through invention.

I would say it's one of the most incredibly exhilarating and challenging things I've ever done. But then I said that about being part of an MBO, setting up a new business and standing as a parliamentary candidate. It's all true.

I'm now working on the follow up. It's called We're All In It Together, set in 2010, and Roger is standing for parliament in a challenging seat. Not that I'd know anything about that.

If you fancy coming to the launch on Friday, click below and reserve your personalised copy.

I get why Labour needs a debate - but not why Jeremy Corbyn is standing for leader

The Labour Party is going to elect a leader. And a deputy leader. And the Labour Party is going to debate the policies and strategies that the winner can take to the electorate. That may take some time. Quite why the first and the third have to be entwined remains a mystery to me.

When Liz Kendall, Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper are after our vote, we can ask them what they will do about Trident, about tax rates, about a Living Wage, about anything we want. We will ask them such questions because one of them will be our leader. We will not have any kind of expectation that Jeremy Corbyn is going to be elected leader, but amazingly he's going to be asked the same questions. As he was here.

This is the reason he gave Total Politics magazine as his reason for standing: "My entry into all of this was because a number of us on the left of the party thought there ought to be a debate about the economic strategy and how we deal with the issue of austerity…"

We will have a debate. We could always have a debate. It will doubtless spark constituency parties calling meetings, attended by a small number of activists, who will then declare that the massed ranks of the party locally have decided to back one or other candidate. And the local people will look at us and go, "Eh? Who are these people?" I've nothing against an exchange of ideas, of debate, of policies. As a party that process needs to be deep and wide and tall.

But surely, surely, we have to get past this shallow gesture politics, the resolutionary road to socialism.

And while I'm trying to cathartically lift myself from a slumber today, I have another real fear.

Raise this on any number of Labour blogs - as Jonathan Reynolds MP has done today - and look at the comments underneath. Abuse, hysteria and the default response to any suggestion you engage with people who voted Conservative - "You're just a Tory". You can get depressed about social media activity, just as you can get over-excited when it goes in your favour. But this is one lesson we don't need to import from Scotland: if you don't like what someone has to say, just call them a Tory. I don't think Jonathan could have been clearer about where Labour policies, values and campaigns should differ. But no, just chuck the abuse. Worked for the SNP, afterall, I just hoped we were better than that.

I hope we have reached what Jamie Reed called "peak bullshit" in this campaign and won't see any more of the ludicrous Taliban comment in the Telegraph today or we're in for a depressing summer of not getting anywhere at all, whoever we end up electing as leader.

Why I don't drink

A few years ago I stopped drinking. I started moderately again. But I realised I didn't really enjoy it. I got roaringly drunk after a friend's funeral, whilst at a particularly low ebb, realising it was both a sedative and a release. I thought back to my younger days, to the desperate hangovers, the swaying, the failure to keep up on a bender and wanting to sleep in nightclubs, the awful things I said to people when sozzled.

So I stopped for good. It's been three years now.

I've now become one of those weird people who doesn't drink. In the past, when I did socially have a bevy, or had a bottle of wine, no-one ever asked me why I did it. And yet now it is me not drinking that always has to justify it. Including the answer to the well-intentioned observation: "I didn't realise you had a problem". By the measures of many, I really didn't, but as a society, I really think we all do.

So, here are three reasons why I don't.

1. Horror. It's a point that's been made this week as Alastair Campbell has been touring the studios in the wake of Charles Kennedy's death. The awful sights of drunk teens at a prom in Edinburgh, student parties, stags. I could add my own stories of carnage at all-day cricket and concerts. It's a fairly unattractive picture of our rather drink-sodden culture.

2. Health. Since I stopped I have lost weight. I do more, I feel well. I don't think I would if I was absorbing the calories like I was. There is a different debate about alcoholism and the disease that killed Charles Kennedy. But hard as it sometimes is to have judgement, enthusiasm and professionalism - I can't imagine how I could manage that with a thick head. There is another health risk, falling over, losing things, getting beaten up because you misread situations.

3. The kids. There have been some occasional surveys that show how young people are turning their backs on a culture of excess. But one of the thoughts in the back of my mind was the effect it has on the kids. Now my eldest is 16 and experimenting with independence, I have to be there in the background. What if the call came - "can you come and get me, I'm in trouble?" "Sorry son, I've had a drink." I shiver at the thought. And how can I hope my kids don't get stuck into the rut of benders if our example is the rowdy middle-aged version of that?

The thing that mitigates against me talking about this more is coming over as a pious bore who won't go for a drink with someone. One of the nicest things said about me during the election campaign was that I was a normal bloke you could have a pint with. I chuckled at the irony. But I hope I still am, and if anyone does want to go out for one with me, mine's a cheeky lime and soda.

The best question I was asked during the campaign and the answer was Manchester, not Labour

I did a session with about 100 students at Stockport College during the election campaign. 

On reflection, in so many ways, it was my favourite meeting of all, despite Labour getting a rough ride from some of the audience. Partly this was because I was asked, probably the best question of the whole campaign, and it was this: "why do you think there will be good jobs for people like us?" 

The answer wasn't in the Labour manifesto, but it was the answer I was able to give with more conviction than any other. The answer is Manchester. It is laid out in the Manchester Independent Economic Review of 2009 and the work of Greater Manchester’s whole project of renewal since 1996.

These include, for starters, the BBC move to MediaCity, Spinningfields, Airport City, The Corridor, Graphene, Nanoco, Alderley Park, NCC Group, Laterooms, TalkTalk, The MMU incubator. These are all occurring in a city region with momentum and attraction, culturally confident, competently run, imbued with fairness and as at ease with the language of enterprise as it is with the need for a changing infrastructure and how we care for people.

And who was in charge locally, creating the benign conditions to attract this influx of investment? A Labour council, a Labour council.

Yet somehow Labour nationally managed to concede one of the greatest successes of a progressive Labour project, the Manchester Labour project, to a tactical Tory sound bite.

Elsewhere on the campaign we were asked to fight back against “American style Mayors” imposed by a Tory government, "setting up Greater Manchester to fail".

We still have a lot of growing up to do, but maybe we can build on our successes not just wallow in our defeats. The first leadership candidate to acknowledge this will probably get my vote.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life

I found myself thinking a lot during the election campaign about that famous saying from Norman Kirk - that people just want someone to love, somewhere to live, something to do and something to hope for. Well, I'm no different. In the course of doing one of the most exhilarating things I've ever done, I've still had time to consider what I actually do with the rest of my life.

It's been hard to plan for the future when I've been rather publicly applying for a new job, even if it was one that on this occasion I wasn't expected to get. I'm upbeat about the experience, given it was my first shot. As my friend Martin Carr said last night - "I don't lose. I either win, or I learn something new."

Rejection
But I only had five months as candidate, pity those who were at it for YEARS. Those unsuccessful candidates who stuck everything on Red 6. Giving up jobs and careers in one city to try their luck and be rejected in another, far from home. Or to stand up as the local hero in their own community and have to face the people who turfed you out every day.
You don't get paid to be a candidate either. So many people don't appreciate or know this, they assume the party supports you with a job.

Family
It does become all consuming. I've not been a particular supportive Dad for my eldest son who's now sitting his GCSEs, or my youngest who is doing his SATS. And in the middle of all of this Rachel has completed her final year dissertation at University AND secured her first teaching job in September. All without much help from this myopic political zombie. This incredibly loving family, they leafleted, supported me in public debates and rose to an unexpected level of enthusiasm for the election. I could quite simply not have done it without them. And I'm pretty sure I don't deserve it.

Work
In all of that time I carried on working. One of my big projects came to its conclusion with a launch event at the start of March - a look at the future for the ICAEW, a professional institute. Another reached a natural end, many others carried on, some stalled, probably because I couldn't maintain the momentum. But even during polling week I was signing off page proofs for a magazine I produce for Seneca and meeting a potential new partner for Liberty one of the other businesses I'm on the board of. And proudly, our Discuss debate series secured more sponsorship and we sealed a media partnership with The Guardian. And I've put together a launch event for Gorilla Accounting, a cracking new business serving self-employed contractors, anyway, it's in Manchester next Thursday and you are welcome to come along.

Book
I also put my book on hold, much to the frustration of the publisher. An expletive strewn satire with 95,000 words, many of them starting with F, which required a blizzard of publicity and would have given out a mixed signal to the voters of Hazel Grove at a crucial time. We're launching it on June the 25th.

Variety
This isn't a moan, by the way. I wouldn't have it any other way. One of the reasons I gave up my full time job a few years ago was precisely to have that variety and an opportunity to live a more rounded life than the treadmill I'd found myself on. I also wanted to contribute to my community in a meaningful way, to do what I enjoy, but also to earn a better living.

The future
I have absolutely loved this. There are some very exciting political challenges I am interested in pursuing, there is a job to build on what we have created here. But right now, this week, I've got to focus. Starting with a presentation I'm meant to be writing for delivery on Saturday.

Who I'm backing for Labour leader - someone who doesn't claim to have the answers

I've left this reflection until last because it will inevitably draw on the debates around the leadership and the personalities pushing themselves or being talked up by colleagues.

I don't think we're anywhere near a sensible debate that could possibly lead to me coming out in favour of any of the leadership candidates.

I think this needs to be a far more searching conversation than a snap leadership election demands. The style of leader will be determined by the kind of party we come around to deciding we want to be.

Learn from history
So, to start that process again, I can only reiterate the analysis needs to include the lost votes to UKIP, the allure of the Tory offer and to learn how we won when Tony Blair was leader. If we don't, then we may as well bed in for a last heave and another defeat.

Broaden
It has to be a starting point that as Kev Peel, a Manchester councillor, says "you can't just talk to families like mine".

Ditch the labels
We also need to ditch the labels and name calling - Liz Kendall on BBC Woman's Hour yesterday made the point that Left-right, Brownite, Blairite labels are unhelpful and pretty meaningless.

Morality
I also can't buy into the superiority of our morality argument, in fact, the opposite may be true. Sure, we all subscribe to values we believe are the right ones and are honest in our pursuit of them, but don't think the others are therefore "amoral". Read Daniel Hannan, a Tory MEP, and grasp what he has to say about how far negativity can get you.

Loss of authority
Matthew Taylor broadens the examination to examine the even wider loss of authority of centre left and social democratic parties and the role in society of a party and what it seeks to be and do. This is the most inspiring thing I've read on the future.

Take this for example. "In terms of activism, progressive parties need to cultivate a politics of personal development and growth (learning here from the models of movements like Occupy, London Citizens, Ashoka, ‘Good for Nothing’ or even the RSA Fellowship). Instead of using technology simply as a transmission and fund raising tool its transformative potential is to open up debate, create platforms for new ideas and experiments and to personalise political engagement. Most of all, progressivism must be a model of politics that does not wait to win office to make change but is about doing the right stuff right now through partnership and collaboration."

Change
In a review of Liz Kendall and Steve Reed's pamphlet on how change really happens, Jonathan Todd makes a valid point that relationships and alliances and entrepreneurship are the drivers that make change. That should be in Labour's character.

Leadership
Finally, Patrick Hurley makes another good point, David Cameron will announce his departure at the end of this fixed term parliament. The Tories will have a new leader, a fresh face, elected probably in the autumn of 2019 ready to go for the election. Someone new to counter the battered, humiliated and media savaged leader we've had. A fixed term Premier. Why don't we wait too?

As you can see, I set out this day to be the one where I had absorbed so much material and thought that I would be getting some clarity about how we can build again. No such luck. This has been the most incoherent and difficult of my post-election pieces thus far. I make no particular apologies for that, but rushing out of the traps in indecent haste may seem like good politics, but it assumes the very thing that we've been defeated for - thinking leader knows best.

How Labour can oppose and offer hope again - 5 thoughts on what we do as a party

1. Understand change and engage in it

Labour only wins when we contest the national conversation - 1945, 1964, 1997. A country for heroes, the confident sixties and a new optimism for a new millennium. I agreed with that analysis by Jon Cruddas as he crafted the last policy review that shaped the ideas for the manifesto. There was good analysis about how Britain is a more entrepreneurial country, how civic engagement and community pride are important cornerstones in how we can connect with people at an apolitical level again. How technology has changed the way people use services. How power is created and the capacity of communities to take control whenever possible and outside of the formal structures of governance, look at what Adam Swersky has to say. To listen and understand what is going on in everyday lives.

2. Be there

As we discussed at the Stockport Labour Group meeting in the aftermath of the election (I attend as a local party observer, I'm not a councillor), there will be people who will need Labour to fight for them like never before. In the rush to the sunlit uplands of Tory aspirational voters we must remain rooted in looking after the people who turn to us. Case work is going to mount, campaigning is going to be hard, it is important we are there when a Sure Start centre is closed, a hospital is sold off, a train line left to rot. There is a lot in what Owen Jones says about campaigning and hoping.

3. Oppose effectively in parliament

Ed Miliband was an effective opposition leader when it mattered. It's a terrible consolation prize, but with a slender majority the Tories could be under pressure to make all kinds of daft compromises to their right and the DUP that Ken Clarke and other centrist Tories wouldn't stomach. The Tories might look united now in victory, but the fault lines are still there. We're going to have to be strident in the battles ahead.  In this parliament we will have a choice to campaign in a European referendum, defend the union with Scotland and stand up for the NHS and remember the promises and assurances they made in the election campaign.

4. Support a move to a country of nations and regions.

It hurts me to say Northern Powerhouse because it represents grand larceny. George Osborne's audacity of ambition. But it is our future - a federal Britain with a chance to redraft profoundly different needs in cities and counties. A fairer country where we build an alternative to London dominance. We shouldn't and mustn't attack the Devo Manc agenda because we see it as a Tory plot, but embrace it as an opportunity to change the country for the better. Look at what Richard Leese says in the Manchester Evening News today - "no stalling on the devolution agenda."

5. See off the Liberal Democrats 

I heard Neal Lawson of Compass on Newsnight last night talking about reaching beyond Labour, a line he's been peddling since 1987. I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now. If we have any tactical imperative it isn't to reach out to them as they drown, but let them sink. I have always failed to see the point of them as a party. I admire the old style Liberals, but it is for them to make their own future, if it exists, not us.

Tomorrow: How Labour can win again

Our local campaign for Labour in Hazel Grove - it's about you

At the manifesto launch, members junior and senior, 14-94

When I rejoined the Labour Party last year it was very much with the General Election of 2015 in mind, but as a member of the campaign team. Expectations in the constituency were incredibly low. But I had started to look at how we filled the void in ideas and campaign strategy and thought how we could set a number of different targets and objectives for the existing candidate - building the party, energising the membership and taking a different approach to how Labour does community campaigning.

At the 2014 conference I came across some great ideas. Liz Kendall talked about imaginative public service reform, I went to a really inspiring talk by Maurice Glasman on community campaigning and facing up to the UKIP challenge.

Fired up by this we convened a street stall in the centre of Marple the following Saturday, where the intention was to start a conversation with the public. To ask, rather than tell. Listen, rather than speak. As Maurice said, the average amount of time it takes a Labour activist to interrupt someone in the flow of telling them something that is important to them is about 8 seconds. The time where an intervention is in any way useful, is about 30 seconds.

Anyway, the candidate never turned up and it later transpired that she'd quit the party altogether over a dispute I never understood that had nothing to do with politics. I worried though about what might happen next. It was likely a new candidate could be parachuted in from outside with no local knowledge, with the clock ticking towards May 2015. At the same time an Ashcroft poll had us in a poor FOURTH place behind UKIP.

We were in danger of losing valuable time. So, given I'd factored in the time to give my all for the campaign for Labour for this election, it didn't take me long to think about putting my name forward and on December the 6th, just five months from polling day, I was selected.

Now, I'm not going to take you through a blow by blow account of what happened in our campaign, but that long introduction provides an important context for how this came about and how I came to be candidate and how my ideas for the campaign developed.

At Stockport College with first time voters

I have had limited experience of political campaigning, but if this campaign was going to be about anything it was party building and gathering the talents. I had 5 months to convince 10,000 Liberal Democrat voters that voting the same way would get them a Conservative government. So, I loaded up my iPod, plugged in my headphones and started delivering leaflets and knocking on doors right across the constituency.

The Jam
It was pretty clear that we would get limited support from the national or regional Labour machine, we weren't in any way, shape or form a target seat. Tony Blair didn't send me £1,000. We went to candidate briefings where our members were encouraged to get on a bus to Crewe. All the top Tories and Liberal Democrats visited Hazel Grove, or in the case of Nick Clegg, he launched the campaign in a pub car park in Hyde, in the wrong constituency. And while the Liberals could pump out a leaflet every other day and pay some company to deliver them, we had to do it all ourselves. To be fair, we got great support from the Stockport Local Campaign Forum in our target wards and I was chuffed at the support from Jonathan Reynolds MP and his team when he came over to meet environmental campaigners locally. But we needed to recruit a volunteer army locally and from beyond our regular pool.

Oasis
Our greatest strength was going to be our people and their talents. I had to embrace our outlier status, not resent it. If the rest of the party wasn't looking, we had a chance to do something different and "off message". What I lacked in campaign experience, I needed to make up in using what else we had in our locker. My business, branding, communication and consultative skills. Bizarrely, I'd been engaged on a detailed project looking at the future for a professional institute. I'd become marinaded in the literature of the future, how technology was changing work and how services are delivered, how the age of social media requires MORE contact, not less, how mainstream media and bloggers have parity of influence. I engaged with bloggers wherever I could, going to them, not inviting them to come to me.
In David Rowbottom, an English teacher, we had a superb copywriter. I had offers of help from friends, notably Ami Guest and Ade Newell from True North who worked with me on a campaign brand (see video below). We went relentlessly positive - offering a vision of the future for families, offering hope, not distrust and we also avoided personal attacks and presented our case as rooted and authentic. We came up with "It's about you" as our theme.


Michael Taylor Campaign Case study film from True North on Vimeo.

Squeeze
What I hadn't bargained for was the extent of the relentless Liberal Democrat squeeze on our vote and a determined effort to discourage our voters and push tactical voting. The Lib Dems fought Hazel Grove like it was a by-election, pumping out mountains of leaflets pushing the (dubious) local credentials of their candidate, stretching their credibility with a confected personal history. Their bar charts pushed the line that "Labour can't win here" - a drumbeat that a Labour vote was a wasted vote. We were told to expect a dirty trick and it came with a few weeks to go when a deliberately misleading letter from the previous Labour candidate, a so-called lifelong "Labour" supporter, that she "now" was backing the LibDems (a week later she announced she had joined them, proving it was a calculated stunt, probably dating back to that non-appearance at our street stall after conference, rather than the last minute heartfelt plea it was dressed up as). Bizarrely, hilariously, it had the opposite effect - our members were upset at this betrayal, loyal voters were angered and yet more volunteers came forward. True, some people contacted us in shock, thinking it was Labour giving up the campaign, not picking up on the detail. Instead we came out fighting and refuted it, but it was a dreadful distraction and something I truly hope the Liberals realise marked a low water mark in political campaigning.

The Clash
I did 7 public debates with rival candidates, many more events with members of the public and made our four regular weekend street stalls the centrepiece of the campaign, launching our short campaign by speaking on my Dad's upturned milk crate on Market Street, Marple on a wet Saturday in March.

After the Romiley Churches Together hustings

The debates were a new experience for me, but I relished it and seemed to do OK, getting decent reviews and recruiting new members to the campaign. I was determined to be honest and authentic, answering questions directly and tackling the other candidates on the record of their parties and what they were claiming. Two of them were Churches Together hustings and I knew that I would face questions that would highlight my stance on moral and ethical issues that I could either waffle around, or be straight about where I differ from mainstream opinion.
On the whole it was civil rather than cerebral, the Tory candidate lent me his pen when mine ran out, and I gave the Green candidate a lift home (in my Prius, he approved), but it is what politics should be about and I welcomed the chance.
If I have one regret at my conduct it was playing to the gallery and being rude to the UKIP candidate when I knew he was on the rack at a teacher's hustings.

Small Faces
I was determined to get young people involved in the campaign and put their talents to good use - but it's a lot to ask an 18 year old to knock on doors and get told to sod off. This is an area we still need to work on. Politics is a contact sport, but there are so many ways of engaging we could do much better at in the future. I was delighted, for instance, that Joe Barratt offered to help and produced this little film of us talking through the issues.

Kinks

Our fantastic team, after canvassing in Offerton

We started from zero and made it to the end with our heads held high, increasing our vote by 50 per cent, mostly at the expense of the Liberal Democrats, but we probably shipped half as many again to UKIP. We fought a good campaign. We were rough around the edges at times, a bit ragged in some of our data gathering techniques, but there isn't a single one of us who could have done more and none of us don't think we've grown and learned more about ourselves in the process. And the greatest thing about it was that we're going to build on this for the future as good friends and comrades.

Next: how we oppose.

Why we lost nationally, the 5 key moments that told me it was like 1992 all over again.

Ed Miliband. "Your leader is a plonker and I wouldn't let him run a shop, never mind the country." Ouch. That came from a high profile personality I spoke to, someone who has made a fortune judging public taste and moods. He wasn't alone, neither were the people on the doorsteps and high streets we spoke to in their large numbers. It wasn't the media twisting the truth with snaps of bacon sandwich munching, but a deep seated lack of empathy with a leader the public just didn't take to. I feel bad for him, because I genuinely grew to admire Ed Miliband as the campaign went on. I really liked authentic warm Ed who met nursing students and spoke candidly during an hour long Q&A.

Tory tax cuts for millionaires. I hosted a round table for business people in Manchester with Andy Burnham in late 2013. I made the point that whenever Ed Balls spat out the word "millionaires" he was saying to every single person who ever dreamt of making a few quid with a new business idea, or  building a company, that Labour aren't on your side. The top rate kicks in at a rate that anyone who earns a bonus looks at and feels is achievable. This is important at a time when a million new businesses have been formed, where a new entrepreneurialism has genuinely swept the country. And that line wasn't just an early throw away, but became part of the key message of the campaign.

The Question Time mauling. There were many, many media interviews that I winced at, where I wanted to crawl back under the duvet and wish it hadn't happened. But BBC Radio5Live and the Today Programme presenters give all as good as they get. No, the Question Time bear pit was the moment the real rising anger of middle England gave it to Ed Miliband with both barrels. It was the debate when friends on social media burst out of their silence to tell me why they would never back me, or Labour, and that the game was up. The aftermath was even worse - blaming the BBC for putting up Tory plants. This was a party in denial about the genuine raw anger from people in the country.

UKIP.  We had nothing to address this. No convincing way of confronting UKIP voters who are worried about immigration and think Labour doesn't speak up for them. Just a different way of telling them they were wrong. You don't change people's minds like that.

The body language of our Tory opponents. There was a moment 10 days before polling, when the postal ballots had been tallied, that Tories in Hazel Grove started to look brighter and more confident. Sure, we had local conditions in our own election that were at play, but if they were "winning here" they were winning everywhere else too.

All of this is far from exhaustive, but they were moments that struck with me. Tomorrow I'll look at our campaign locally and the lessons we learned.

The longer view - five paths to clearing my head post-election

OK, I'm going to take a week to work this through. I've got an incredible amount of thinking and sorting to do, as well as computing what has gone on in the election and what's going to happen next. Rather than blurt it all out I'm going to take a few days to position these thoughts into some kind of order and do a blog on each of these topic headings.

I'm really interested in what friends and colleagues think, so please email me or give me a call, or tweet or Facebook, or whatever. Remember me in your prayers too.

But in some kind of order, this is the agenda.

1. (Sunday) Why we lost nationally, the 5 key moments that told me it was like 1992 all over again.

2.  (Monday) Our campaign lessons locally, again, learnings from 5 key themes.

3. (Tuesday) How we as a party operate and oppose in the next few years. What are the 5 main strategic objectives and how do we tactically achieve them?

4. (Wednesday) How Labour can win again - I'm leaving this until later in the week because it will inevitably draw on the debates around the leadership and the personalities pushing themselves or being talked up by colleagues.

5. (Thursday) Work life balance. This whole process of being a candidate has been exhilarating, it has filled me with purpose and by jove we all need that don't we? But I also need to get my head around what else I want to do, what I need to do and what I get fulfilment from. It's time to revive this blog, for a start, to think freely again, but I also need to earn a living.

After the election - first thoughts and some thanks

Yes it's been long, and yes I still feel strong.
Into the half light,
Another velvet morning for me

Thank you to everyone who joined our grass roots campaign for Labour in Hazel Grove. We didn't win, but we achieved the highest Labour vote in Hazel Grove since 1979, increasing our vote by 50% over the last General Election.

(slight tweak from immediate post-election blog on local party site).

This is the first election campaign I have ever fought.

I stood for selection at the end of last year because I wanted to build the Labour Party in this constituency, to galvanise our supporters, to push the agenda that the working people around here deserve representation from a party that stands firmly for them.

I made three promises at the start of this campaign.

To play the ball, never the man or woman. We've done that.  I will never shy from holding anyone to account, as I'd expect anyone to scrutinise what I say and do, but we have been positive about what we offer and avoided personal attacks.

Secondly, I promised to be true to my personal values. I am proud of who I am, what I believe in and what Labour stands for. I'm not afraid to say where I differ either.

Finally, I promised to enjoy it - it has been a privilege to work with such a decent and lovely group of volunteers - so how could I not do. It's been a real pleasure. And I'd like to start by mentioning two people in particular. Emily McDermott, aged 14, the youngest member of our local party. Her father Martin, our dear much mourned friend, would be so proud of her. And Percy Hutchinson, 95 years young, the most senior member of our party. And then every single one of our members, supporters and voters in between.

It's about you.

They have all worked hard because we all believe more than ever that we can build our party here. We have more members than ever, more volunteers, which translated into a higher share of vote and more Labour voters.

We've done that with a team of local volunteers making enormous sacrifices.

We have campaigned in this election for a country that works for everyone. We will continue to do so in all our communities from Hazel Grove right over to High Lane and Woodley, to keep building on the momentum we have created that may not have been enough this time, but frankly we all know there are Labour supporters who's loyalties have been borrowed by a relentless campaign of voter suppression by the Liberal Democrats and a big challenge from UKIP.

This has been a hard fought campaign. In the 2010 election there was ONE hustings event. This time I have taken part in SEVEN. All really well attended.

As I said, this is a new experience for me. I have learnt a great deal about the mechanics of campaigning. I have visited other campaigns and attended hustings in neighbouring constituencies. I say this as a tribute to my opponents: the quality and standard of the debate has been far, far higher here than anywhere else I've visited, even better than the national shouting matches too.

But we aren't going anywhere. Rachel and I have raised our family here, this is our community and she starts a new job teaching at a school in Romiley in September. The very reason I started this blog is because of what I feel about living here. And as Labour activists, we're going to carry on building here.

I have personal respect for the successful candidate. I obviously disagree with his plan for what the country needs and deeply worry about what a Conservative government will now do.

But we will hold him to account, we will continue to stand up for our NHS, our schools and colleges and to work ever harder for those I really worry about, the poor and vulnerable of this constituency and do all we can to support the aspirations of all our young.

Happy retirement Alan the Paint

Picture by Arthur Procter

Marple's Market Street has lost an institution this weekend with the retirement of Alan "the Paint" Kennington. Friends and colleagues held a party on Saturday, which was one of those happy/sad occasions. Alan is certainly looking forward to his future.

But as one door closes, it seems another is opening. Rick Morris from All Things Nice next door is going to expand into Alan's old space and build a bakery.

Thanks to everyone from the Marple Business Forum for such a lovely send off for Alan and here's to the future for Alan the Paint!

And we're off... but remember, it's about you

Labour have made a good start to the election campaign - but the relentless negative attacks by the Tories and Liberals will surely backfire. Ed Miliband did really well on Thursday night, despite Kay Burley's efforts and some grandstanding from Jeremy Paxman. The Tories are rattled and look shifty as they refuse to detail their savage welfare cuts.

I'm happy to report we've been getting a good response locally too. I'm aware of the avalanche of Tory and Liberal leaflets across the Hazel Grove constituency, but it's all pretty desperate stuff. Hopefully Marple Leaf readers and friends can help us distribute our Labour leaflets and newsletters over the next week.

Labour's soon-to-be environment and climate change minister Jonathan Reynolds joined me in Marple on Friday for a round table on climate change and we visited businesses and spoke to people on Market Street like Rick from All Things Nice.

It was wet and cold in Marple on Saturday, windy in Romiley, but the sun came out for us in Woodley by midday. We had some good conversations everywhere, and our council candidates continue to campaign on local case work for those who've been taken for granted by the Liberal Democrats.

WE CAN WIN HERE. The very fact that the Liberals are campaigning on OUR policies AGAINST their own record in a Tory government proves how unpopular they really are. 

When I was selected I promised some good friends three key pledges.

1. I won't turn into a robot

2. I'm going to enjoy it, and 

3. I want to play it straight. 

I'm clear about what I believe in. I'm clear about who I am, where I've lived and how I've made my living. I'm also clear that if you vote for me you get Labour.

British gangster films I have loved and loathed

In a profile in the current issue of the Marple Review newspaper I was asked a number of light personal questions, alongside the other election candidates. The one answer I gave that people have asked me the most about was my relaxation technique - trashy British gangster films and church. In that order.

I have discussed this at length with my good mate Edmund Montgomery, the former assistant priest at Our Lady and St Christopher's in Romiley. There is a biblical narrative within these often grisly tales of violence and retribution. But also a strong sense of redemption.

The trashy ones I've recently watched include every possible film about the Essex Range Rover murders, Essex Boys, Fall of the Essex Boys, Essex Boys the Retribution, Rise of the Footsoldier, Bonded by Blood, some even starring the same actors. These aren't in the same league as epoch defining crime classics like Long Good Friday, Layer Cake and Get Carter. They're not subtle either - though this binge has included some dark and clever low budget films - Harry Brown and Down Terrace stand out - but most are fairly crude. St George's Day, The Crew and A Belfast Story are typical fare and hinge around a flawed hero who wants out but can't escape his past. There isn't a BAFTA amongst them, but I find the whole sub plot as to how these films even got made utterly fascinating. What the triggers are and what they say about the creative economy.

Maybe someone one day will make a film about this Marple murder of 1994, still unsolved.

Democracy isn't broken. Discussed.

I spoke at the Discuss debate on Democracy on March the 11th. I was speaking AGAINST the motion that Democracy is Broken. Here's my case. I was more than ably supported by Dr. Rob Ford, author of Revolt on the Right and an academic at the University of Manchester and up against activists Kwame Ibegbuna and Loz Kaye.

Good evening. I intend to prove to you tonight that Democracy isn’t broken.

It is bruised.

It is, to quote Winston Churchill, the worst form of government invented…

Except for all the others.

I wanted to set this out to start with by using the example of two cows.

PURE DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

FASCISM:
You have two cows. The government takes them and sells you the milk.

ANARCHY:
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to kill you and take the cows.

That’s the Walking Dead theory of politics. Maybe some of you think that’s better.

Maybe the very fact we can reduce our democracy to such absurdities is a sign of a rumbling, grumbling discontent with it.

But hold that thought while I take you on my own personal journey

I’ve always been fascinated by our politics.

By the theatre of public life – how we attempt to reconcile issues of how we distribute resources by a system of popular validation.

From 2000 to 2012 I worked as editor of a high profile business magazine. I retained my fascination in politics, but put my participation on hold.

In that time as a journalist I would always put my readers and my own publication over any party political loyalty.

But as my time doing that ended in the spring of 2012 something happened.

I live in a small town called Marple. It sometimes gets generously referred to as “leafy Cheshire” but in reality it’s a mixed community in Stockport of working families and retired people, a mix of private and social housing.

Lots of self employed people. And yes, with white vans and occasional England flags. And I’m cool with that, by the way.

Our local sixth form college was in a financial black hole and opted to sell one of its sites to a supermarket chain.

As news dripped out, people got busy.

Through social media word spread.

Small teams divided up tasks to separate rumour from fact.

They scrutinised minutes of meetings, they put in Freedom of Information requests.

On one balmy evening 500 people turned up at the Local Area Committee meeting where usually the councillors go through the motions to an audience you could count on one hand.

One of the local councillors was a governor of the local college and could have, should have, but didn’t, speak out about this.

They said TRUST US.

We didn’t.

A group was born.

MARPLE IN ACTION.

Privately the Councillors appealed to us to “tone it down”.

We didn’t. We turned it up.

We gathered signatures on a mass petition.

There was a march through the centre of Marple.

We lobbied the leader of the council. He backed us and developed a spoiler scheme in the centre to spike Asda’s guns.

There was a rally in the park for 1000 people.

IT WAS EXCITING. IT WAS OUR VERY OWN MARPLE SPRING.

People started talking about what kind of place we wanted to live in.

We considered standing candidates in the local elections, but as all the parties knew where public opinion stood, there would have been nothing to gain for this single issue campaign.

In turn Asda tuned on the charm. Their consultants from Deloitte held a consultation.

They made promises on how engaged they’d be in helping the community and complementing local businesses.

Opinion held firm.

It took a while, but eventually, 18 months later, Asda gave up.

The College did the sensible thing and sold the site to a housebuilder. Much better.

This my friends was Democracy at work, the will of the people.

When it matters. When decisions are made that affect people’s lives and when they feel they can change, it is to the tools of democracy that we turn to.

I was inspired by this community action.

I was reminded of the words of Tony Benn.

You see there are two flames burning in the human heart all the time. The flame of anger against injustice, and the flame of hope you can build a better world.

I thought long and hard about how to play this out.

At the same time I’ve worked hard to develop this brand – DISCUSS – because I’m passionate about debate and ideas.

So….

I rejoined the Labour Party.

When I was younger and angrier I did so because I hated the Tories.

Through my activism in our church I have learnt more about the rich traditions of Catholic Social Teaching and the pursuit of a COMMON GOOD.

As Cardinal Vincent Nichols said in a letter this week  - “WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO BE INVOLVED IN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS. IT IS A DUTY WHICH SPRINGS FROM THE PRIVILEGE OF LIVING IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY.”

We live in fascinating times and face an opportunity to reforge our democracy.

No-one has yet come up with a better structure for change and social action than a political party.

Parties aggregate diverse political opinion and create order out of chaos, creating a platform.

Sometimes that’s done badly.

What I found wasn’t that surprising.

Hollowed out political parties with historically low levels of engagement and membership.

More votes cast for the X Factor, Strictly or Big Brother than in council elections and even general elections.

In fact, Loz has already told you all of this. And I imagine Kwame will layer it on even more with examples at a local level.

It is hard and thankless.

People telling you they don’t vote, because “they don’t believe in it”.

What do they believe in?

Absolute monarchy?
Feudalism?
Dictatorship?
Anarchy?

But politicians are waking up to this.

Parties know that we have to engage differently. That’s what democracy forces us to do.

It offers us the challenge to do things differently.

But for all of the disillusionment in the political process I still believed it offers us the potential to change lives, and to ENJOY the active endorsement of voters.

Democracy places a powerful burden on the elected to hold the powerful to scrutiny and to exercise power with care.

It is taken for granted, but for the most part, it can work.

And what of the development of social media and the development of iDemocracy?

Or Digital politics?

Or the prevalence of the shallow narcissism of Russell Brand.

In the current parliament we have seen a return to scrutiny in the powerful committees.

We have seen more rebellions against a party line by free thinking Members of Parliament who feel the breath of accountability from their electors and visibility like never before.

How politics is done is changing as a result of this.

The iconic image of the narrow Scottish DEVO campaign isn’t a hollow pledge or Cameron’s tears, but Jim Murphy’s upturned IRN BRU crate – 100 speeches in 100 town squares.

By a quirk of fate and a twist of circumstance I found myself selected as Labour’s candidate in the upcoming General Election.

I’m keeping up fast, but I don’t have the party baggage of other candidates. It’s not my career ambition, but I do feel a calling.

And the very way we are doing politics appeals to me too.

In this general election my party is having to rely on smaller donations and wider participation. Teams of activists making local contacts.

Ed Miliband has set us the target of having 4 million conversations this campaign. Direct contact. Personal contact.

This isn’t happening by accident. It is a drive for more democracy.

Authenticity.

Obviously I hope it is successful. But even within our flawed democratic system it offers us hope for the future.

Back to our two cows.

You have two cows, the government in London want to decide who gets the milk. You organize a campaign to keep it local. You stand on a milk crate in a public campaign and persuade the people that’s a fairer and more sensible distribution of resources.

That’s what I’ll be doing.

I say please continue to support the fine traditions of democracy and reject the motion.

Campaigning update

We had a very successful fundraiser for the parliamentary election campaign last night. My election agent Navendu (pictured right) did a superb job of organising it, securing Chris Williamson MP (left) and Tony Lloyd (third right) as speakers. We were also supported by an impressive show of strength by the Stockport Labour councillors and Afzal Khan MEP (second left). 

But most of all it was a good night to remind ourselves what our campaign and our vision is around here, that we have dedicated and devoted activists who support our candidates, organise in our communities. I also really like my Labour colleagues. I haven't known many of them for long, but they're great people who I feel inspired by and enjoy their company. It really helps.  

I'll try and update this blog with a few more things from the campaign. But the local party website is here.

Back to the Eighties with Chelsea

The revulsion and shock at the antics of Chelsea's throwback mob on the Paris Metro proves one thing: we've come a long, long way. But it has brought back some horrific memories of their fans and what it was like going to football when I was a lad.

In the 80s Chelsea were horrible. I saw what looked like the entire away end do Nazi salutes and chant at one of their own black players, Paul Cannoville, when he came on as a sub at the last game of the 1981/82 season. 

After the 82 game I watched from the top deck of a double decker bus as a mob of them in green flight jackets and big boots terrorised Bolton Road in Blackburn. One sight that will chill me forever was a black Rovers fan being pursued with particular zeal. He was on his own and there were that many after him, screaming the kinds of hateful words the killers of Stephen Lawrence said, that I thought he'd die. He didn't, as I still see him at Rovers games now. 

A few months later they battered everyone in sight on the Blackburn End (above) in a grotesque example of "end taking". The uniform had switched to golfer chic by then and terrified Rovers fans scrambled over barbed wire fences to get away from a mob dressed like Ronnie Corbett.

There's tales of growing up in the North aplenty in the book I published a couple of years ago, Northern Monkeys, an anthology about the evolution of northern working class fashion. We skirted around the right wing element of the casual movement and dropped a chapter from a National Front supporter (since reformed) and Blackpool fan (unreformed, I suspect). Apart from Leeds, it was never an overtly racist scene.

But the Nazi thing was what gave Chelsea a particular chilling edge. My brother-in-law is featured in Colin Ward's book Steaming In where he met the Chelsea mob at an England away game in Istanbul in 1984. The author highlights the bafflement of the "Blackburn lads" (he's actually Blackpool) at how the real hardcore refused to acknowledge goals by black players and were openly and proudly racist. That was the way they liked it.

But that was then and this is now. I'm one of the first to snigger at the atmosphere at Chelsea, the "golf clap" that greets a goal and all those corporate fans. I'm not sure these are good times for football, but they are better times in this respect, that's for sure.

The question has been asked whether those racist days are coming back? No, but if you'll excuse the pun, it hasn't gone away, it's just gone underground. 

It's about Marple - Co-op closes, we get a new Asda in two months

We live in such a vibrant community, full of energy, people with ideas as well as a setting in an area of stunning natural beauty. One of the reasons I wanted to work with other people in the area to make things better was a sad sense that the local Liberal councillors (and our retiring MP) rather take the people for granted. One example is disappointment about a lack of progress in Marple recently, which will be laid are now that the Co-op has closed. 

In the Marple Spring of 2011 when the community came together to oppose plans by Asda and the College to build a hideous new retail shed I expected it would be an opportunity to forge a new vision for the centre of Marple. Not so. Instead the interest by developers has evaporated and communications on plans for the Co-op site, the surrounding plots and even of Asda itself has been very poor.

Speaking to shop staff yesterday they are due to be transferred and retrained as Asda employees and the target date for a new store is the 30th of April. I hope they're going to be OK.

Speaking to shoppers as the shelves emptied (above, with Carl from Mellor) they wonder what the whole of the centre will be like and what can be done to make it flow better.

I'll be honest, there was a great deal about the Co-op I didn't like - it was more expensive than most other supermarkets and the range was limited. 

It's clear the Co-op brand has taken a battering and the slow death of the Marple store has been tied to larger corporate problems, but the local civic gain has been positive. Will Asda be as generous? So far their silence has been deafening, but then it's early days.

The Civic Society have been active citizens doing some excellent work. Our Labour Party street stalls and surveys have identified an appetite to contribute to something better locally. We're keen to progress this and would urge local people to put pressure on our councillors to work a lot harder for our community.

Regency Cafe and Pimlico - contrasts aplenty

I took a trip down memory lane last Friday to Pimlico, central London, where I shared a flat with my mate Chris Lodge through 1991 and 1992. On the last trip I looked at the shifting urban geography of east London on a wander around Bethnal Green from The City. Westminster offers more subtler and more nuanced contrasts, but they are there.

The first sign that greets you as you stroll out of Pimlico tube station highlights the concerns of local tenants of the Peabody social housing estates in the area that they are being forced out. The shops across the road from the flats were a laundrette and a posh off licence doing a promotion on champagne, as if to highlight who lives here, cheek by jowl. I glance in a local estate agents would tell you that a small house off Vincent Square would cost you £2.5million.

I wandered across Vauxhall Bridge Road, where our flat has long since been demolished, and into Vincent Square. Here are the "soccer" pitches of Westminster School, behind locked gates. 

Within a short walk are the chequerboard rows of tenament blocks of the estate between the square and Horseferry Road and Channel 4's modernist HQ. Designed by Edwin Lutyens and built on land given by the Duke of Westminster in the 1930s. There's a great blog on the design of it, here.

The purpose of the trip, as it is on other visits to different London locations I used to know, was a stop over at a classic London cafe; this time Regency Cafe, one of my old favourites. It was also the location for a pivotal scene in one of my favourite British films of recent years, Layer Cake. The menu was better than I remembered and the customers packed it out. I only had time for cup of tea and a pudding but saw enough to tempt me back. 

I've just checked the scene and I even sat at the same table that Daniel Craig did. It was a long table for six and just like the last trip to Pellicci's, you share a space with strangers - it was another fascinating encounter, a lad who used to work in the area with similar fond memories and an uncanny knowledge of the Blackburn Rovers team of 1995, especially for an Arsenal fan. London tends to throw up these opportunities for stories and shared experiences.

I nipped into a lunchtime Mass at Westminster Cathedral before a meeting with the team I'm working alongside on a new project. Again, the brief service was an experience of incredible social richness and diversity.

Back in the day Pimlico was an area of acute contrasts, it is even more so now. Amazing that working class London still clings on alongside incredible wealth.