Jack's CV:

Soldier:  In 1998 Jack commissioned from Sandhurst as a 20 year old Infantry Officer.   He went on to serve for 6 years with The King's Own Royal Border Regiment (now The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment).  He served in Canada, Bosnia and Cyprus and worked as a Platoon commander, recruit instructor and a (particularly bad) helicopter pilot!  He left in 2004 as a Captain.

Aid Worker:  On leaving the Army, Jack went on to work for British charity The HALO Trust.  With HALO, he helped run humanitarian mine clearance and bomb disposal operations in Afghanistan and Somalia.  He was subsequently recruited by The United Nations to provide risk management support to their refugee operations in Sudan and The Democratic Republic of Congo.

Business Advisor:  Jack now works for professional services giant, Ernst & Young, as an advisor to businesses and government departments.  He specialises in implementing complex and high value change programmes.

Education:  Jack was originally educated at his local comprehensive school, Chichester High School for Boys, before taking a year out aged 16 to work as a gamekeeper.  Afterwards, he went on to complete some rather undistinguished A-Levels before joining the Army.  More recently, he returned to education and passed (with Merit) MSc Sustainability and Management at The University of London.

Why is Jack in Politics?

Jack believes that his life experience makes him the sort of person that would be able to bring real change to Westminster.  He's not a typical politician and has spent most of his life at the coal-face of business, public service or charity work.  He wants to make politics more relevant, more accountable and more interesting to voters.  The contact details on this page are there to be used, he really wants to hear from everyone.

Jack's Priorities for Derby:

1.  In places like Sinfin Community School, the council should be listening to parents and teachers as they voice their worries about how it changes.  We can't continue with this control-obsessed Liberal council and their  bizarre leader.

2.  The Cathedral Quarter falls into the constituency of Derby South.  This historic and beautiful part of the City is under threat from a variety pressures, not least the Westfield shopping centre.  Jack supports Westfield but, if elected, would force the council to look again at how its access can be changed to improve the footfall of our city-centre shops.

3.  The rise of gangs in Derby is frightening.  But the reality is that these are just bored kids without supervision or inspiration.  Jack would want Derby to lead the country in the way we invest in youth activities.  To do it we need to engage parents, teachers and communities.  Together we must take responsibility for developing the young people around us.

4.  I believe that hospitals should be run by medical staff, schools should be run by their head-teachers and that policemen are well-trained enough to decided who needs arresting and who needs cautioning.  This may sound simple but the Labour government doesn't seem to trust anyone but their own Westminster mandarins.  This obsession with centrally set rules and targets must change.

5.  In Derby, we have one of the last true manufacturing hubs in the UK.  We must not be tempted to protect our industries from market forces like Labour did in the "bad old days".  Instead, we must invest in them to facilitate the kind of research and development that makes world leading companies.  Even more critically, we must free them from the kind of bureaucracy that this Labour Government loves so much.