Shaun Bailey (London politician)

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.[4] 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.[5] The family are of Jamaican origin.[6] 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.[7][8]

Bailey attended Henry Compton School in Fulham and left with five CSEs.[4] When Bailey was twelve years old, his mother sent him to join the Army Cadet Force in White City.[9] When he was about nineteen years old, he became a Sergeant-Instructor and stayed in the Cadets for another ten years.[9] 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.[5] After leaving secondary school, Bailey attended Paddington College, where he achieved two A-levels and a BTEC.[4]

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".[10][11] 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."[12]

Bailey graduated at the age of 27 with a 2.2 in computer aided engineering from London South Bank University.[13] Previously, he worked as a security guard at Wembley Stadium and the London Trocadero to fund his university tuition.[14] He was unemployed for two years.[15][16] Bailey said: "I did bad, bad jobs. I basically worked sweeping factories, delivering beer and security work".[15] At least twelve members of his peer group spent time in prison.[17]

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.[18] 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".[19] 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.[20][21]

In 2018, Bailey was selected as the Conservative candidate for the upcoming London Mayoral election (then scheduled to be held in 2020 and later postponed until 2021).[50] The Evening Standard newspaper endorsed Bailey for the Conservative candidacy, suggesting Bailey "had been both the embodiment and standard-bearer of Tory modernisation".[51]

Bailey was subject to racism during the campaign on social media and in a letter posted to a Conservative party office.[52]

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.[53]

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 "[robs] 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".[54] 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 (sic) days off."[3] James Cleverly, then the deputy chair of the Conservative Party, said that Bailey had been misunderstood and would not be sanctioned.[55]

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."[56][57]

Bailey has expressed concerns about liberalism, saying "the more liberal we have been, the more our communities have suffered".[4] 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.[58]

In 2005, Bailey suggested that working class people "look to rules", otherwise they may turn to crime.[59]

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.[60]

Bailey has said that children are using abortion services as contraception and has favoured reducing the time limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks.[61]

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.[15][17]

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".[17] The couple live in a house owned jointly with a housing association.[62]

Bailey is married to Ellie, they have two children.[63][64] He is a practising Christian and attends an Anglican church.[65][62]

• Bailey, Shaun (November 2005). "No Man's Land" (PDF). Centre for Policy Studies. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
• Bailey S and Najjar N, 'Time for a Dose of Euro-Realism', Smart Government, 2015

• Shaun Bailey for London – campaign website
• Shaun Bailey at the London Assembly