Once elected I will be vegetarian …

We’re caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, faced with a choice between Dishy Rishy’s Unconservative party, Son-of-a-Toolmaker Starmer’s Labour, Jumping Ed Davey’s Lib Dems, Funky Farage’s Reform (and never forget the Greens, best beloved.)

My political journey is as follows: at age five, I was sent to Dunannie (junior school of Bedales), then onto Dunhurst, and finally to that famously traditional bastion of conservatism, Bedales, where, being a child, I believed what I was told.

At 16, feeling that Bedales was far too strict for a chap of my persuasion, I decided to move to Alton 6th Form College to follow my interests, with a little Politics, Economics, and Law on the side. I discovered, much to my astonishment, that the sons of tradesmen had a rather different understanding of history and the world compared to the woke shibboleths I had hitherto been taught and absorbed without question.

I went on to Loughborough University to study Politics and Economics, where inevitably the professors were socialists. Interestingly, in my second year at the University of Olomouc in the Czech Republic, the profs were capitalists. One even suggested I invest in local real estate with him. Fifty-five years under communism had given the Czechs immunity against socialism.

Upon my return to the UK, I started my first business roasting whole pigs and lambs for 21st birthdays, weddings, and corporate events. The lesson learned was that if you create an excellent product and market it with conviction and vigour, people will buy it.

Then I went to New Zealand for one month to marry my beautiful Kiwi girlfriend, and stayed for ten years. I met a chap in the pub and ended up acquiring his dying magazine by taking on the debt to the printer. I removed the distinctly dodgy salesman and hired another who was intelligent, hardworking, and inspiring to work with. I replaced the graphic designer with one who had a sense of style and installed myself as editor. We grew until we had two magazines and a marketing business. I learned that a business is nothing more than the sum of the people within it.

After ten wonderful years, I decided to return home to launch Tom Parker Creamery to add value to the milk produced on my family’s dairy farm. At the time, persuaded by family, friends, and the mainstream media, I was a convinced remainer.

Then came the vote, and shock horror, Farage, Cummings, and Boris had won. Believing Cameron, Blair and Obama’s propaganda, I thought we were in for an instant recession, housing crash, and indeed the collapse of society itself.

Fascinatingly, nothing much changed for the UK as a whole. Yes, if you were a small-scale exporter to the EU, the increased time and money devoted to form filling might be disastrous, but for everyone else, the only inconvenience was a longer queue at customs.

We now know that COVID-19 probably escaped from a research lab in Wuhan. It was only dangerous for old, sick people, who should have been protected while everyone else carried on exactly as before. Instead, our governments, with the honorable exception of Sweden, locked us up for two years, hugely damaging our economy, society and future.

The damage fell disproportionately upon the young, and many businesses were destroyed, including WildTomato, my NZ magazine. This was a business that had made a profit every year since I bought it. Then the NZ government shut the country down for two years, cheered on by the media, and the vast majority of the populace.

From the onset of lockdown WildTomato lost money every single month, meanwhile it was illegal for me to fly into NZ to help the team, so after taking two bounce-back loans, and injecting 30k myself, I was left with no choice but to liquidate my company. The lesson - don’t trust politicians.

All of which is to say that, I believe we need to reduce the size and power of the state (with the exception of the police and military,) make sure we balance our books, treat our borders like you would a company, only let people in who would make the country stronger, and expel those who are actively working against the interests of the country.

Let the debate continue …

Jack Martin