In the nineteenth of our video interview series #CanaryCandidates, we meet Kevin Allsop – standing against Labour’s Kirith Entwistle
Kevin Allsop is standing as an independent candidate in Bolton North East in the general election. And it was “desperation” that drove him to stand against the Labour Party. As he told the Canary:
I think there are very few opportunities left to turn back the clock, to halt this permanent march towards environmental chaos, poor work, people living in poverty, children living in poverty, children who will probably soon lose their aspirations, let alone lose their hope… My grandsons now, who are 4 and 5, 40% of their peers will experience poverty and regular hunger.
He comes “from a very strong trade union background, local campaigner, not necessarily party politics though”. And he explained how it was Jeremy Corbyn who inspired him to join Labour, saying:
I was one of those people who joined the Labour Party and left the Labour Party with Corbyn, and I felt that elation and then when he went I thought… ‘no this is absolutely wrong’… People say that Corbyn inspired young people… but he inspired people across the decades, across the generations, so that was good.
Labour has made a political choice not to stand with ordinary people
Kevin Allsop described why he has no faith in Labour under Keir Starmer:
I refer to them almost like a tag team when you’re getting… Tory light and full-blown Tory. And I don’t think Tory light is a fair description anymore, because I just think it’s Conservative continuity.
With the Tories’ cruel two-child benefit cap in particular, he lamented that Labour has decided not to scrap it. This type of austerity economics, he insisted, is simply a political choice:
That’s a bit like saying ‘we’re not having owt to eat because I’ve decided to have a patio’. Surely your fiscal policy should deliver the things that you need the most… These parameters that they’ve set are purely artificial.
But there are ways to deal with priorities. As he said:
after the Second World War, housebuilding – that was done on bonds, government-issued bonds.
Regarding Labour’s current commitment to increasing the influence of the private sector in public services like the NHS, he explained:
It’s jobs for the boys. That’s where the influence lies with the Labour Party… We shouldn’t pretend that these people have been manipulated by high-powered… slick operator business people. They’re receptive to this. They’ve gone out to meet these organisations. And I imagine they see this as a mechanism for shoring themselves up.
Kevin Allsop: we can’t trust the private sector with public services
Having worked on Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects in the past, Kevin Allsop said:
If you wanna see waste, then look at a PFI contract. We pay the private sector a fortune – well, why don’t we just take out bonds, get the money, and then build the school ourselves?
Describing the damage caused by PFI in more detail, he insisted:
It’s a drain and a strain on the budgets of local councils… They have this phrase which they call a self-managed contract… It’s like putting a fox in charge of chicken safety… It’s ludicrous.
He also strongly believes in the public sector dealing with key issues in society. Regarding housing, he said:
In Bolton alone, it costs about a million pound a year in crisis homelessness… It’s not just the million quid, it’s the social impact of that, of having kids who often don’t know what the future holds for them… I think you should licence private landlords and licence private houses, and you must have a licence to operate.
Additionally, he stressed that “there needs to be a mass programme of insulation” in the country, and an end to subsidies for big companies. He has a comprehensive manifesto on his website.
Money needs to circulate in communities again, not in tax havens
Kevin Allsop argued that allowing money to circulate up to the richest circles of society and away from ordinary communities is a key part of the problem Britain has today, emphasising:
Stop all the money going up there, then we don’t have to claw it back down. Keep it in the community. So we go back again to paying people properly for the work that they do.
He added:
We have to stop this belief that we can do this by negotiation with capitalists.
He also insisted:
We need to get money into pay packets as opposed to into dividends and shareholders… The economic prosperity that comes from having people with expendable income: they tend to have a better diet, the kids achieve well – are better at school, they go on to have better occupations, they spend money in the community…
This poverty wage approach that we have, with people completely dependent on welfare to get them by, it’s just not sustainable. And it’s not fair that as a taxpayer we should pay for a businessman to pay somebody rubbish wages… If you can’t afford to pay your workers, then you’ve got a hobby, you’ve not got a business.
And he summed up by saying:
It’s become an act of bravery to say ‘can we please not let children starve?’… I think we should all be shouting this.
Independents are not in the pockets of lobbyists, and will listen to constituents
Speaking about why people in Bolton should support him in the election, Kevin Allsop argued:
As an independent, I’m free from that party control, and I’m free from big supporters, big backers
And he asserted:
I propose real change. I’m an honest, direct person… You’ll never hear me use the politics of division. I’m based in the community, I live in the community… I will consult the constituents before a major decision is taken.
For more on Allsop’s comments see the full interview on our YouTube channel:
Watch and read all our #CanaryCandidates interviews here.
