Ian Williams (From South Wales Argus)

Ian Williams

8:02pm Monday 16th April 2007 in News

I was born in Pontypool and lived and worked in Torfaen all my life with the exception of my service in the Armed Forces, where I saw active service in Borneo, Aden and tours of Northern Ireland.

I live in Penygarn with my wife, Kay, who works in the local Tesco, and I run my own taxi business in the area. Prior to that I worked in the local Girlings factory and moved to a Japanese manufacturing company where I became Production Manager Electronics, from there I moved to an American electronics company as the manager of electronic production. I have a son, who is in the police force, and a daughter who works in the local opticians.

I have been active in community life being once a community councillor, and a member of the Communities First partnership board. I am also secretary and treasurer of the Pontypool branch of the Royal British Legion where I am also a caseworker.

I was the president of the Torfaen Labour Party for a year of office. I became disillusioned with many aspects of the Party and decided to resign.

Along with others, we formed the Torfaen group of People's Voice to provide a forum through which people were able to air their political views without fear or favour. We believe that politicians should be more accountable and need to live in the area they wish to represent, only then can they really know the problems that exist in any constituency.

The reason I am standing in this election is to re-impose the link between politicians who live and care about the issues people face in their community, and not someone who sees it as a good career move.

I firmly believe we have not been best served by this Assembly Government and the way the politics in Wales operates, we should as an Assembly be working together to create a dynamic and prosperous Wales and not engage in politics of the playground. We need to support policies that will help us to achieve this and not to dismiss them because of party politics.

We should use the experience of people who work in our health and education services to formulate policies that are agreed across all parties and then we should have some stability in these areas, not the continual change we now see happening according to political whim.