Where I'm coming from, and what I'm about.

Faith, Family, Freedom?

The England football team didn't qualify for Euro 2008, but the telly-folk still choked up the channels with live coverage anyway, so that footie-addicts could still get their kicks. I personally don't follow football, but I admit that we politics-junkies have more than a little in common with those who do. A while ago after one-too-many years of fairly big parliamentary majorities taking some of the fun out of UK politics, I cast my eye abroad for some inspiration, and caught sight of the US presidential election.

Obama or McCain? Well, to be honest, I still think the best candidate from all parties was Mike Huckabee, Arkansas Governor, former-pastor, and master-communicator who brought a little humour to the show in the way that Boris Johnson has more locally, and as an homage, I've nicked his slogan of 'Faith, Family, Freedom' as a way of giving you some insight into my values and thoughts.

Faith

You don't spend your earliest years in Belfast, as I did, without appreciating how religion impacts on public life, and while the story there is painted in bolder colours than elsewhere, I'm still minded to think that the way we answer the biggest questions about origins, existence, identity and purpose ultimately impacts on the more mundane stuff of everyday life. My own values flow from my Christian beliefs, and this brings in ideas of personal responsibility, service to others and social justice, which I believe have influenced our nation at the best moments in British history. Having in my working life seen the direct impact of crime on victims, and arrested some of the offenders, I'm pleased to see a return of the ideas of 'right' and 'wrong' to public discourse, along with the concept of punishment, and an acceptance that we need to work together in order to transform they way we tackle the blight on people's lives that results from a breakdown of law and order.

Family

I like to think of myself as pro-life and prolific. Myself and Lisa have four children. Marcy at 4 is the eldest, followed by her brother Zach (aged 2), and twins Cassie and Jed (aged 1). Baby number 5 is due in August 2008. No, we don't know what it is yet, and yes, we do have a TV.

The family is the first community, and the basic building block of all other communities. It is important that we defend it, and do what we can in order to help it do its job. I'm grateful that the need for work-life balance is now more recognised, but I'd also be pleased if the tax system treated me and my wife as a team and recognised the contribution of mums and dads everywhere to society by leaving them a little extra for their own personal battle with rising food and fuel bills.

Freedom

Unduly optimistic views about human nature and our ability and perceived need to plan and control everything have given us ever-bigger government, ever-rising demands and an ever-widening gap between what politicians promise and what governments can deliver. It's no wonder people are frustrated, although there's something to be said for Milton Friedman's observation "Thank God we don't get all the government we pay for."

In the long run, perhaps it would be better to promise less and to pay less so that people can spend more of their lives doing what they feel is important, rather than being forced to fund someone else's promises and sense of self-importance. We would do better if we remembered that government is supposed to help people live a good life, rather than get in the way all the time; that the word 'minister' originally meant 'servant', not 'master'; and that the easiest way to relieve burdens on families is to climb down from off their backs.

My life so far

I was born in Belfast, moving to Chorley in Lancashire when I was 10, where I have been based ever since.

I attended Albany High School and Runshaw College, becoming Chairman of Chorley Young Conservatives and Treaurer of the Students Union, when I was 17. Then I secured a place at Oxford University to read Law, Philosophy and Politics at University College, graduating in 1992. I later gained a Masters in Law from Coventry University, including research which I developed into the basis of my 2001 book "Polygamy, Bigamy and Human Rights Law". This examined the likely impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 in terms of legal recognition of polygamous relationships.

Since leaving Oxford, I've worked entirely in public service roles, primarily in Law Enforcement and Crime Reduction, for 16 years. I started as a police constable in Chorley, but after winning early promotion to Sergeant I came to see limited potential for me to change the system from the inside and moved briefly to further academic training before helping to establish the new Criminal Cases Review Commission as one of their first Case Review Managers. There I investigated alleged miscarriages of justice until the opportunity came to coordinate Crime and Disorder Reduction activity within local Community Safety Partnerships in the North-West.

Over the past 10 years I've had a lead role in 3 successively larger partnerships in Warrington, Preston and Blackburn, tackling crime and anti-social behaviour and alcohol and drugs misuse. So far the results have been good, due to the active support of various partner agencies and hard work by a number of excellent staff in my teams.

In Warrington the partnership not only cut crime but did so faster than similar areas, and made it to the first Beacon Status shortlist for Community Safety.

In Preston the level of burglary was cut in half, and vehicle crime by over a quarter in 3 years, and in the same timescale in Blackburn with Darwen, crime is down by over 23%, with the best results in measured public perceptions of crime and anti-social behaviour than for many years.

So, what I do between weekends is going fairly well, and in what I laughingly call my spare time I also clocked up three years as a Member of Lancashire Probation Board, before going back to my old school, where I've been a governor at what is now called Albany Science College for the past 5 years.

Copyright 2008 Samuel Chapman