How have your political views changed over time?

[afleitch]

When I was first interested in politics I was socially liberal, extremely permissive (for such a young age) and very much ‘New Labour.’ I backed Labour less and less until 2003 when I drifted away completely, but not because of the Iraq War (which I supported) but because I started to see the ‘falsity’ or it all. I was in essence a ‘Portillista’; a supporter of a Conservative Party that had yet to reform so was homeless under the IDS era. By 2004 I was supporting the party having being impressed enough by Michael Howard and joined in 2005. I supported David Cameron to lead. I have since been a Conservative, though since 2006-2007, I have essentially been a ‘Tartan Tory’; supportive of the SNP domestically. I dislike and distrust Labour.

I have always been socially liberal. As a gay man who accepted my orientation since I was about 13, I was first involved in politics through the ‘Scrap the Section’ anti Section 28 pressure group at 16. I attended a Jesuit Catholic school until I was 18 which in many ways radicalised my views towards social justice but against clericalism. I was then and remain a stout secularist; though since 2010 I have been an atheist-agnostic.

I have worked in the public sector since 2006 and I have actually shifted ‘leftward’ in recent years, but only in terms that I have moved away from holding naïve positions on economics that you tend to hold if you’re not working! I am still centre-right; I believe the debt should be paid down, public spending curbed and I support welfare reform. I also believe in eliminating the taxation of the poorest in society, but some of my more ‘every man for himself’ rhetoric has gone.