Saturday 1 February 2014

Some links related to the upcoming Portsoken 2014 Election

The following links may (or may not) inform.

They relate to Rev Taylor-Campbell and Andre Walker, who are  both  standing for election in Portsoken Ward in 2014.

Both gentlemen stood in other wards in the 2013 City elections, but were not elected.

William Taylor

William Taylor joined a group called the City Reform Group, associated with the Occupy movement. He used to be local to the Ward, and was heavily involved in campaigning against Michael Bear and the redevelopment of Spitalfields market. This lead to his involvement in the City's politics.
His expressed agenda is Reform of the City - in my view here in Portsoken we have more immediate problems - and we need Common Councilmen who will focus on residential matters, not politics. 

Lord Glasman  first brought Taylor to stand in Portsoken back in 2001.

"When did you become involved with 'citizen organising'?Lord Glasman: That really begins roundabout 1999. A very important person in this story is the chaplain of the university, William Taylor. I was writing my book on Catholic soc­ial thought, which he'd never heard of, and we used to talk often together and a real friendship developed." 

Lord Glasman was Best Man at William Taylor's wedding.  The two are very closely connected.

Together, Glasman and Taylor worked on the 'City of London Campaign'. To understand this campaign, this link to the New Statesman is instructive:

Does William Taylor's appearance in our ward mark the next phase of  Lord Glasman's move against the Corporation of London? Is this going to be of any benefit to the residents of Portsoken?

William has the necessary intellect to take on the Corporation, and is competent. He could be an excellent Common Councilman for the ward. However, residents need to ask, will the battles William fights in the City, be battles  for Portsoken, or for some other more abstract agenda?

The Occupy Faith Blog contains a statement written by the Multifaith and Belief Working Group of Occupy London that discusses William Taylor's association with Occupy in the previous 2013 City of London Election, as William stood for election in a different ward, but was not elected. It is instructive to follow through the links at the bottom of this blog entry.

William Taylor backed Bryn Phillips in the 2013 election  writing an article in support of his candidacy. Never mind that Bryn had been arrested for violent disorder and burglary. Bryn was a 'breath of fresh air. Here is Guido Fawkes on events on election day.

Which leads me on to a  peculiar circumstance, and our next candidate. The web address for Andre Walker's campaign in Cheap Ward  from 2013 now redirects (at time of writing 02-02-14) to Guido Fawkes' blog. (see footnotes). This is perhaps not unsurprising, as Harry Cole, the News Editor for that blog, also works for the TURC, where Andre Walker is Press Officer (see below).


Andre Walker 

Why is Andre Walker campaigning in Portsoken? The answer to this mystery, is that Andre Walker was introduced to the ward by Councilman John Fletcher some weeks ago. John Fletcher showed him around the ward, and introduced him to a few people in the ward as he walked around.  John has clearly stated that he is not advocating people vote for Walker as a candidate, but was just doing the gentlemanly thing of showing Andre around, as he had been asked. You can see John's note about this at the foot of this post.

Andre Walker has a page on Wikipedia. He also has a blog that is unrelated to Portsoken issues.

Andre stood unsuccessfully for Common Council in 2013, as a candidate for the Young Britons Foundation, a conservative  group. He came last in Cheap Ward, but is trying again this year in Portsoken. Here is part of his campaign from last year.


What is the Young Briton's Foundation?
The Young Britons’ Foundation is a non-partisan, not-for-profit educational, research and training organisation that promotes conservatism in schools, colleges and universities.

Andre Walker  is currently listed as a speaker on the Young Britons' Foundation website.

Here is an informative article about last year's election by Josh Neicho in the Evening Standard.

Andre Walker  also has had a few articles written about him in the National Press
Here is an article from the Daily Telegraph. Here Hugh Muir in 'The Guardian' adds more on the same topic.

There is another blog post about Andre Walker here, that discusses unusual activity on his Twitter account. Another blog discusses this issue here.

Andre is involved in the Trade Union Reform Campaign. According to its website, Andre Walker currently works as their Press Officer. What is the group? An informative article about the TURC and who runs it can be found here.  Another article is here. The Chairman of TURC, who is Andre Walker's boss, is Aidan Burley. Burley was sacked from government by Cameron for hiring a Nazi uniform. He retained his post at TURC however. 

The CEO of TURC is Mark Clarke, who lost his seat on Common Council in the 2013 elections (Ward of Farringdon Within).

Some more Andre Walker thoughts and statements are quoted here.

Hugh Muir in his Diary, has a few pointed remarks to make about TURC, about halfway down the column of this diary entry.

In addition to his work at TURC, Andre Walker is aide to David Morris MP 

He has another job - writing up Prime Ministers' Questions for 'Trending Central'

Andre Walker on gay rights:
"Andre Walker, an aide to the Tory vice-chairman Andrew Rosindell, said on a BBC radio show last week that gay marriages were "deeply offensive to religious people" and that homosexuality should be "tolerated but not encouraged".
"I'm saying that a gay relationship is inferior to a heterosexual relationship. I'm sorry if that offends people but sooner or later that was going to come through," he said."
This quote is extracted from here. It also is discussed here, and originally was reported in the 'Sunday Times'.

  Interestingly, according to the 2004 Census results, a breakdown of the data shows that Brighton and the City of London are the only areas in the UK where more than one per cent of the resident population lives in a homosexual relationship. 
In 2012 OFcom revoked the Iranian government's TV licence. Andre Walker was opposed to this.   Andre Walker has appeared on Iranian State TV several times in the past including - 20 August 2011 and 21 May 2011. 

In 2010 Andre was active in the campaign to unseat  Sadiq Khan MP. 
________________________________________________
Type cheapward.com into Google and you get a redirect from the url cheapward.com which was used by Andre Walker in last year's election, and this now leads directly (on 2-2-14)  to the Guido Fawkes blog, namely to this page:
http://order-order.com/2012/07/26/ballet-day-bonkers-bryn-phillips/


The Guido Fawkes blog is closely associated with the TURC 





1 comment:

  1. Hi All.

    Glad to see there is such an interest in Portsoken.

    For the record:

    Andre Walker approached me before Christmas and before he had decided to stand. He asked me if I would show him round the Ward so he could make an informed decision about standing. I am intensely proud of our Portsoken, warts and all and was happy to give him a tour. This was the first time I had ever met him.

    I did not knock on any doors with him but did introduce him to anyone I knew who we happened to meet along the way, as courtesy demands.

    I did so the clear understanding that I would show any other prospective candidate around if they asked. (or indeed anyone else with and interest in our Ward)
    Since then one other interested party has contacted me by phone. I made them the same offer but they chose not to take me up on it.

    The offer is still open...................


    John Fletcher CC

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.