Shaun Bailey (London politician)
Shaun Bailey is a British politician and former youth worker who is the candidate of the Conservative Party for the 2021 London mayoral election. He has been a member of the London Assembly since 6 May 2016.
Before entering politics, Bailey co-founded the youth charity MyGeneration.
Bailey has worked as a researcher for the Centre for Policy Studies, before standing in the Hammersmith constituency as a Conservative at the 2010 general election, and also served as the Prime Minister's special adviser on youth and crime from 2010 to 2013. At the 2017 general election, he contested Lewisham West and Penge. In 2018, Bailey was selected as the Conservative candidate in the 2021 London mayoral election and was subsequently accused of Islamophobia, Hinduphobia and sexism in a row surrounding past comments.
Early life
Bailey was born in May 1971 in North Kensington, London. He and his younger brother were raised by his mother and extended family in the absence of his father, who worked as a lorry driver. From the age of about thirteen years old, he began to get to know his father, along with a second family his father had started, and became close to his stepsisters and stepbrother. The family are of Jamaican origin. His grandfather came to the UK from Jamaica in 1947 as part of the Windrush generation. Bailey said his grandfather fought for Britain in the Second World War.Bailey attended Henry Compton School in Fulham and left with five CSEs. When Bailey was twelve years old, his mother sent him to join the Army Cadet Force in White City. When he was about nineteen years old, he became a Sergeant-Instructor and stayed in the Cadets for another ten years. At about the age of twelve or thirteen, he began attending the Jubilee Sports Centre to take up gymnastics, and he became a member of Childs Hill Gymnastics Display team. After leaving secondary school, Bailey attended Paddington College, where he achieved two A-levels and a BTEC.
Bailey was the subject of BBC Radio 4 series The House I Grew Up In, in which he said he had committed burglary in his youth and said: "I had a particular group of friends who indulged in a burglary. I had done it with them". Reflecting on gang culture, Bailey commented: "The problem of having estates with names is that people become very territorial. You kind of defend your "ends". Because you don't want your locale to be seen as where the pussies live."
Career before politics
Bailey graduated at the age of 27 with a 2.2 in computer aided engineering from London South Bank University. Previously, he worked as a security guard at Wembley Stadium and the London Trocadero to fund his university tuition. He was unemployed for two years. Bailey said: "I did bad, bad jobs. I basically worked sweeping factories, delivering beer and security work". At least twelve members of his peer group spent time in prison.In May 2006, Bailey co-founded MyGeneration, a charity addressing the social problems that affect struggling young people and their families. It was established shortly before Bailey was selected by the Conservative Party to stand in the recreated Hammersmith constituency. In 2010, The Times reported that Bailey was at the centre of allegations that his North Kensington-based charity showed £16,000 worth of spending "without any supporting records". Between 2008 and 2009, almost half of the charity's expenditure was on publicity and administration, not "direct charitable expenditure". Of the £116,000 charitable expenditure, more than half was spent on travel and subsistence. The charity was closed in 2012 due to financial problems. The charity's services were taken over by other charities including Kids Company.
Early career
Parliamentary candidate
On 29 March 2007, Bailey was selected at an open primary to be the Conservative candidate for the newly recreated parliamentary seat of Hammersmith in West London. His campaign focused on issues surrounding families and social responsibility. He failed to win the seat at the 2010 general election, achieving a swing of 0.5% from Labour which was two points below the average swing across London, and lost by 3,549 votes.In the run-up to the 2015 general election, Bailey was unsuccessful in attempts to be chosen as the Conservative Party candidate for Kensington, Croydon South, and Uxbridge South and Ruislip. At the 2017 general election, Bailey contested Lewisham West and Penge, where he finished in second place with 12,249 votes. His share of the vote declined by 1.1 percentage points compared with 2010, against an average increase of 0.3 percentage points for the Conservatives across London.
Researcher
Bailey was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, writing for the Centre and for various newspapers, including the Evening Standard, the Times, and The Independent.Government adviser
In 2011, Bailey was appointed as one of David Cameron's "Ambassadors for the Big Society". In 2012, he became a special adviser to the Prime Minister David Cameron on youth and crime. Bailey was paid a salary of £60,000 as a special adviser. In 2013, he was moved to a part-time role in the Cabinet Office on a one-year contract and was paid substantially less. The Telegraph published claims he was pushed out of Downing Street by David Cameron's "clique of Old Etonian aides".London Assembly
In October 2015, Bailey was selected as the third Conservative candidate on the London Assembly top-up list, after Kemi Badenoch and Andrew Boff. He is currently deputy leader of the Conservative Greater London Authority Group.Other
Kensington Labour MP Emma Dent Coad provoked controversy after a blog she wrote about Bailey in 2010, before her election to the House of Commons, which referred to him as a "token ghetto boy". Dent Coad quoted former neighbours describing Bailey as a "free-loading scumbag" and "the most hated man in North Kensington". She suggested Bailey had been "used" by the Conservatives and that his "public school buddies will drop him like a hot potato" if he failed to get elected. Bailey subsequently called the comments "racist" and "hate-filled". Dent Coad later apologised for "any offence caused" and said that she was just repeating what others had said.In 2018, Bailey joined Havering NHS Trust’s board as part of a diversity scheme as a trainee.
2021 London mayoral election
In 2018, Bailey was selected as the Conservative candidate for the upcoming London Mayoral election. The Evening Standard newspaper endorsed Bailey for the Conservative candidacy, suggesting Bailey "had been both the embodiment and standard-bearer of Tory modernisation".Bailey was subject to racism during the campaign on social media and in a letter posted to a Conservative party office.
Following his selection, Bailey was criticised for things he had written, said and shared on social media. He shared a tweet with an image with a caption describing Sadiq Khan, the incumbent mayor of London, as the "mad mullah of Londonistan". Bailey's spokesperson said he wouldn't have shared it if he had seen the caption.
In October 2018, Bailey was accused of Islamophobia and Hinduphobia over the contents of a pamphlet entitled No Man’s Land, written for the Centre for Policy Studies in 2005. In it, Bailey said that celebrating Muslim and Hindu festivals " Britain of its community" and risked turning the country into a "crime riddled cesspool" as a result. He claimed that South Asians "bring their culture, their country and any problems they might have, with them" but that this was not a problem within the black community "because we’ve shared a religion and in many cases a language". In the pamphlet, Bailey confused the Hindu religion and the Hindi language: "You don’t know what to do. You bring your children to school and they learn far more about Diwali than Christmas. I speak to the people who are from Brent and they’ve been having Muslim and Hindi days off." James Cleverly, then the deputy chair of the Conservative Party, said that Bailey had been misunderstood and would not be sanctioned.
In the same month, Bailey was criticised for saying at the 2008 Conservative Party conference: "Gals getting knocked up to get housing? It’s a cottage industry where I come from."
Mayoral Policies:
Bailey promised to increase the size of London’s Metropolitan Police to 40,000 officers and introduce new ‘stop and scan’ technology that will use thermal imaging in knife crime hotspots.
Bailey has campaigned to reverse the increase in the Congestion Charge to £15 if elected as Mayor.
Bailey plans to create a taxpayer-owned housebuilding organisation controlled by the Mayor.
Bailey plans to make every London bus electric by the end of his second term.
Political views
Bailey has expressed concerns about liberalism, saying "the more liberal we have been, the more our communities have suffered". Bailey has accused BBC's output as being biased and went on to suggest the BBC "sees itself as propagandist for liberal values", and that the licence fee should be split with other broadcasters.In 2005, Bailey suggested that working class people "look to rules", otherwise they may turn to crime.
In 2006, Bailey said "by giving children condoms and the amount of sexual material they are exposed to you normalise sex and they feel it is their divine right to have it, when actually it is not", and added "that is one of the things that drives their self-esteem up or down and leads to crime". It was later clarified that Bailey had not tried to suggest that access to abortions and contraceptive services had directly led to crime, however early sexual activity was a contributing factor to increased crime.
Bailey has said that children are using abortion services as contraception and has favoured reducing the time limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks.
Personal life
Bailey grew up in social housing with his Jamaican mother, grandfather, grandmother, two aunts, and two uncles. His extended family lived on the same estate in Ladbroke Grove.Following selection as Conservative's PPC for Hammersmith in 2007, Bailey and his immediate family moved out of social housing and Bailey at the time said "the mice and damp got a bit much". The couple live in a house owned jointly with a housing association.
Bailey is married to Ellie, they have two children. He is a practising Christian and attends an Anglican church.