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The individuals voting to make a statement
Yorkshire Post
Thursday 28 Apr 2005 Winning may be a distant prospect, but it hasn't stopped dreamers and=20 idealists from putting their case to Yorkshire voters. William Green reports. It was more than 50 years ago when Robert Leakey last stood for election.=20 But now the 90-year-old is standing for Parliament =96 to abolish money. The founder of the Virtue Currency Cognitive Appraisal Party says money is= =20 the root of all evil and bankers are "the oldest criminal profession in the= =20 world". Mr Leakey is standing in the Skipton and Ripon constituency but admits he=20 is unlikely to unseat Conservative David Curry, who secured a 12,930=20 majority in the 2001 General Election. Mr Leakey last stood for election as a county councillor in the 1950s and=20 would feel "very guilty" if he didn't fight for Parliament. He was born in Kenya to a missionary family, but disaster struck when his=20 mother got appendicitis when they were living there. Motorists refused to=20 take her to hospital unless they were paid first, and she later died. He wants money replaced by "virtue currency" =96 where the person needing a= =20 service (like food or housing) would literally print the cash for the=20 person providing the service. Government run by the people, is another of Mr Leakey's demands. Other independents who have taken up the election gauntlet, include Shipley= =20 candidate David Crabtree, who spent ukp160 registering his "Iraq War. Not=20 in My Name" party. "Whatever protests we made were ignored, so I thought there will come a day= =20 when these people will have an opportunity to voice their feelings, and=20 that day has come =96 May 5," he says. "My sole intention is to allow people who are still angry or frustrated=20 about the Iraq war to register their vote against it," says Mr Crabtree,=20 who owns three Bradford care homes for the elderly. Hull North candidate Chris Veasey wants a better deal for the North, and=20 his party, Northern Progress, has been founded to achieve that goal. He is also ready to consider civil disobedience and does not rule out=20 breaking away from the UK "if we are simply not going to get anywhere". "Northerners are at the bottom of the heap for everything because Labour=20 thinks Northerners have nowhere else to go but Labour. "Well, now we do," says Mr Veasey. But he faces competition for independent-minded voters from market trader=20 Carl Wagner who is standing on a "Legalise Cannabis Alliance" slate in Hull= =20 North and Hull East. Mr Wagner says the ban on cannabis is "Naziism", and wants it legalised for= =20 recreational and medicinal uses, and to make eco-friendly products. He has partially financed his campaign by selling 20p stickers from his=20 Hull market stall for the past three years. And Socrates, also known as Peter Lee Boswell, has spent ukp1,500 of his=20 own money to fight for the Leeds East seat on a platform harking back to=20 the citizen-based democracy of ancient Athens: "I thought it was better=20 than spending some money on a holiday," he says philosophically. Socrates, who bears a likeness to the famous Greek philosopher of the same= =20 name, says he is standing because "things are getting desperate". He says the political system does not reflect the wishes of the people. The 54-year-old believes laws are not being genuinely agreed and freely= made.
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