Interview with James Tibbitts, Labour candidate in Bradshaw, Bolton

Interview with James Tibbitts, Labour candidate in Bradshaw, Bolton

• Why a Labour candidate in Bradshaw?

I’ve lived in Bradshaw all my life, I went to school there, so I have a strong connection with it and I don’t believe the Conservative Party will get that. In an area like Bradshaw, and generally speaking in Bolton, people are struggling so it’s very different if you were going to speak with a candidate from down south. Bradshaw is one of the more social economically prosperous areas, but even an area like that needs money spent on the pavement, the roads; it needs a sense of community that it used to have when I was a child but definitely not now, it needs money being spent on the green spaces and also a bit of police presence (because some of the residents say there isn’t enough and there’s still crime so the neighbours are keeping an eye on one another in a way they shouldn’t have to). We have a Conservative council in Bolton, and a Conservative government, so Bradshaw needed someone to stand for them and the Labour Party is going to stand for them. If I’m completely honest, I do care about Bradshaw, that is just a seat in my town but I care of all the seats; so that’s why I’m the candidate for Bradshaw. I’m running to try to stop the Conservative cuts.

• What are the main issues you want to prioritise in this campaign?

The main one to me is the 70 million pounds that are going to be taken by the Conservative government from Bolton. That is the main issue because all the other issues will be affected by that. You studied Politics so I’m sure you know that as much as it would be great that money wasn’t the antithesis of everything that’s going on, without money, what can we do? Lots of these issues that we have need investment, and we want to create long-term socioeconomic benefits. The town of Bolton is socioeconomically struggling, and they’re going to take more money away from it, so that is by far the biggest issue. 

I’m very proud of being from Bolton, so I made lots of friends in the area by meeting with people my age, and they weren’t as much privileged as I was in terms of their socioeconomic background. The idea that their communities are also going to be affected by cuts the government wants to implement, that’s where I have a big issue.

Money being taken out of the council means less opportunities for the council to fix issues that are in the community, that’s the main thing I want to run on, but then you would have lots of another things that are more targetted towards the specific area I’m running in that would also be affected by money being taken away. 

• Why is Labour the best alternative to the Conservatives in Bolton?

I think Labour’s the best alternative to the Conservatives anywhere, not just in Bolton, and that is because we live in a country that has a FPTP system that only really allows a choice of two parties. Our ideology is based on caring and sharing opportunity with people. You have to look at what the two parties are offering, as much as it would be lovely for people to have the option of more parties (there is the Greens and the LibDems), you have to go with the Conservatives who operate on a conservationist right-wing approach, or you go to Labour that it was founded on a philosophy of caring for those around you. I as an individual care about those around me because that’s how I was raised, and generally speaking, what life shows is that the sharing of opportunity and resources for caring for one another benefits everyone in the long term. Those principles, those values directed towards the party that I think is most fitting to accomodate my philosophy and influence me as well. The Conservative Party doesn’t have an interest in doing that for me.That’s why Labour is the only alternative in Bolton and elsewhere.