In terms of the national situation it’s, it’s a whole
range of things, getting rid of Peter Mandelson, that
was good fun and well-needed. I also helped fashion
the first cross-party agreement on climate change,
which needed to be done.
interesting in its own way, but there were
different problems – it was grotesquely
inefficient and very hide-bound and not
very responsive to customers and so
on, so that was the other extreme. I then
went on to run a wine shop which was a
bit of a waste of time, except for learning
about wine and meeting my girlfriend.
Then I went on to do some writing and
I wrote a book which actually hasn’t
been published – I want to publish it at
some point, it’s a book of short stories, I
might resurrect it. I did EFL (English as a
foreign language) teaching for a bit and
then I got elected to the council at 27
and that’s when the politics kicked in.
What ignited your passion for politics?
I’ve always hated injustice, that’s what
ignited my passion for politics, I don’t like
people being treated unfairly – you have
all the rich people in this country then
all those poor people elsewhere in the
world, it’s issues like Tibet - I’ve always
felt very strongly about Tibet.
us”, and I said “I don’t want to do this
any more”, you know, so I ended up
walking out and I felt this tremendous
sense of, well relief – as I walked out into
the sunshine in Kensington High Street.
I remember the record at the time which
summarised how I felt, it had come out
about two or three years earlier - John
Lennon’s “Watching the Wheels”, which
was how I felt at that point, just like
that song.
I thought the private sector had been
rat