 |
| Phil Chandler with Clare Long Summers, the local Green Party’s 200th member. Photo: The Green Party |
IT Manager and Morecambe resident Phil Chandler has been selected by North Lancashire Green Party as the Green Party Prospective Member of Parliament for Morecambe and Lunesdale.
Phil, who lives in Morecambe with his wife Kathy and their two daughters, has had a varied career, starting out as an engineer in the aerospace industry, followed by a number of years in Africa working in relief and development programmes. On returning to the UK he retrained in IT and was the IT Manager for HDRA (now Garden Organic), coming to the North West to be part of the local arts organisation, folly. He now works at Lancaster University, helping to run the IT systems there.
He is an active member of Morecambe Warblers, a keen sailor with Morecambe Sailing Club, a member of theTrade UnIon UNITE and Quaker chaplain to Lancaster University.
“I believe Morecambe Bay could be a world leader in the technologies vital for a secure future,” feels Phil. “I know that from Skerton to Silverdale, and from Heysham to Arkholme, this is an area of great beauty with a proud history, living through tough times. However, with a dramatically renewed vision it could, and should, be an example of how to combine a love of where we live, with enough good quality housing, sustainable and affordable energy, secure employment, and a society that allows all to flourish.”
“I am standing because I feel politics has let us down badly over many decades,” he says. “The Green Party are striving to bring an end to the politics of scapegoating, cuts to essential services, a creaking health service, almost permanent war, a growing reliance on food banks, and ecological degradation.
“Labour, Liberal and Tory governments have created a very insecure world yet we have all the ingredients for a more co-operative, shared one. The present system promotes unconstrained greed, rising inequality and forced growth that puts corporate profits ahead of the well-being of people and planet“.
“It is possible to have a society where the job of economics is to allow people to live the best lives they can. It is time for us to make that happen. Green Party policies have a different emphasis and direction based on the common good of all, now and for future generations. “
With an electorate of nearly 70,000, Morecambe and Lunesdale is a marginal seat and likely to be fiercely contested by sitting Tory MP David Morris, with Labour candidate Amina Lone and Liberal Democrat Matthew Severn previously announced. Mr Morris won the seat with a majority of 866 votes in 2010.
On the web site Vote for Policies, the Green Party are leading the way in Morecambe & Lunesdale. Give it a try and see whose policies your views are closest to:
http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/constituency-results?place=morecambe+and+lunesdale