Tom Woodcock
Tom Woodcock is a teacher at Long Road Sixth Form College and the RESPECT 2005 UK general election candidate for the city of Cambridge. Tom Woodcock is a trade unionist and a member of the National Union of Teachers, which tends to be the most militant of the British teaching unions. He is the only RESPECT candidate, other than Lindsey German, to have a campaign blog.
Policies
His policies include creating larger pedestrian areas within the centre of Cambridge so as to reduce congestion problems and to end the ID card scheme. Many people are against the ID card scheme because it is usually believed to be an attack on civil liberties, and a waste of money. One of the RESPECT party's main policies is an end to the Iraq war. So Tom Woodcock is naturally campaigning along these lines. They also want a move towards proportional representation.
Tom Woodcock is fighting to bring telephones, the internet (presumably ISPs), the trains, buses and commercial aviation, water, the arms trade, gas, oil, electricity, state schools and hospitals, council housing and pensions back into public ownership
On the 27th of April 2005, Tom Woodcock was involved in a pensions rally in Cambridge, which ended with an election hustings about pensions. Pensions are alos a major issue for the RESPECT party.
“I will be proud to address the Cambridge Pensions Action Group tonight, and thank them for their fine campaigning. It was this kind of activism around the country that forced the Government to back off from its pension plans, which would have been a catastrophe for millions of working people. The Government has limitless money for war, but whenever we ask for decent pensions and a dignified retirement we are told the money isn’t there. Labour, Lib-Dems and Conservatives were all ferociously opposed to the planned strike, and for this alone, none of them deserve the votes of the working people whose lives in retirement would be made miserable and short by these policies." Tom Woodcock
General Election 2005
In the 2005 General Election, RESPECT did not really expect to win Cambridge, however Tom Woodcock aimed to take enough votes away from the Labour Party candidate, Anne Campbell to let the Liberal Democrat candidate, David Howarth win.
Tom Woodcock received 477 votes (1.1% of the votes cast).