VOTE NIC 2010

Nic Coome Nc Coome lives in Chilton Foliat, with two children - Jonathan, currently studying for a PhD in Chemistry at Durham University and Juliet, currently an undergraduate in French with Russian at Bristol University. He has spent virtually the whole of his working life in railway industry. He started on British Rail as a sixteen year-old school leaver in 1973 as a Signal and Telecommunications Department Trainee Technician, and went through that department for several years before becoming a commercially-minded manager with Network South-East. Since then he has worked for Eurostar and the Office of the Rail Regulator, before joining Railtrack in 2000. He has worked there since, going through the trauma of the demise of Railtrack and the birth of Network Rail. He currently works in the Planning and Regulation directorate on projects for the reform of Network Rail and the wider industry. As well as experience in the rail industry, Nic Coome has also been the Sound Engineer at The Hexagon Theatre in Reading, working on a very wide variety of different productions. Nic believes he is very much an ordinary working man, not a professional politician. Interests Nic's principal interest is music. He also enjoys cricket, rugby (he is a Harlequins fan) and American Football. He recently started learning to play the Saxophone which he believes he will continue forever. Politics Nic had been a member of the Conservatives in Swindon for around three years and stood for the then Thamesdown Borough Council on two occasions. He was then, very briefly, a member of UKIP and stood essentially as a paper candidate for Kennet District Council in 2007. With the formation of the Libertarian Party two years ago, Nic saw an opportunity to be a part of an exciting organisation that truly believes in individual freedom and personal responsibility. He found himself in agreement with the Libertarian Party's opposition to the bureaucratic and expensive European Union, as well as the party's call for much smaller government, and its utter rejection of big taxes and the surveillance State. Nic Coome has been a member of Chilton Foliat Parish Council for around fourteen years and Chairman of the council for the last six.

This will entail dismantling all the legislation of the last 10-15 years which was devised (or has been subverted so as to be used) to institute or increase the power of the state to interfere with individuals' rights to privacy. For example, there is simply no need for ID cards, the Contact Point database or the permanent storage of DNA information (particularly that of innocent people). There is no justification for the restrictions on the right to protest outside parliament or for the ability of the police to hold those they do not like in custody for 42 days. There is no justification for local authorities to use anti-terror legislation to spy on people going about their lawful daily business or for the level of CCTV coverage or for the number of speed cameras on the roads. There is in particular no need for the powers in the Civil Contingencies Act for ministers effectively to suspend parliamentary democracy. The above is only a sample of the repressive legislation which I will work to repeal

The current government has a particularly bad track record when it comes to telling people how to run their lives. These include the smoking ban, the hunting ban and the banning of the personal possession of licensed firearms. Libertarians do not believe that is appropriate to ban actions or items simply because the government of the day does not approve of any of them. This is why I will support the repeal of all such legislation. That should not be taken to mean that I necessarily approve of any or all of those things; what I happen to think of any of them is immaterial but I do not support the use of legislation in such areas which should be a matter of personal choice

Some estimates put the number of Quangos at around 1,200, employing nearly ¾ million people and costing in excess of £64bn. I will work towards the elimination of these unaccountable bodies and either dispense with their services altogether or, where their work is ABSOLUTELY essential, will accept that they should be reabsorbed into the mainstream civil service. Quangos are a byword for political patronage and cronyism and have no place in the modern word. In addition to that, I will work towards the changes to the constitution set out in our manifesto. This means (amongst other things):- that we should leave the EU; that those constituent parts of the UK which are willing to remain will be treated equally and those which wish to leave will be allowed to; that the Regional Assemblies and all associated bodies will be wound up, along with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish departments of central government; that all administration will be carried out at the lowest possible, most local level thus paving the way for the abolition of such departments as Education; that the UK government should have fixed terms and be elected by Single Transferable Vote; and that corporate donations and support from trades unions for political parties will be banned to prevent abuse.

The above areas I want to concentrate on will enable the Libertarian Party to work towards our manifesto goal of the abolition of income tax and the drastic reduction of other forms of taxation. The parlous state of the national finances means that it may not be possible to move to that position as quickly as we would like. However there are some measures that could be implemented as soon as the savings from reducing the size of government as I have outlined above become available. These would include the merging of National Insurance with Income Tax, the raising of the threshold to £12,000 and the replacement of all other levels of tax with a single rate of 20%. Business taxes would also be simplified and the move away from VAT and Council Tax to sales taxes could begin.