Adrian Sanders

Adrian Mark Sanders was born on 25th April 1959 at 9 Clennon Rise, Paignton. He went to schools in Paignton and Torquay before attending Torquay Boys' Grammar School which he left after A Levels.

After a brief spell working in a timber yard, he spent seven years in the insurance industry.

Adrian was interested in current and local affairs from an early age. "In my teens I much preferred reading newspapers to books and I always watched the national and local news on TV".

Disillusioned with the Labour Government of the day that he felt overlooked the needs of peripheral areas of the UK like Torbay, and fearful of the unregulated capitalism espoused by Mrs Thatcher, the new leader of the Conservative Party, Adrian joined the Liberal Party in 1979.

"I regret now that it took me so long to pluck up the courage and join. Having decided by the time I was old enough to vote that I was much closer politically to John Pardoe and David Penhaligon than any of the Labour of Conservative politicians in the region, I spent a year thinking about whether I should get involved."

Adrian got stuck into the meat and drink of political activity from day one. "I turned up at the Liberal HQ, which in those days was in Lucius Street, and was given a sack full of leaflets to deliver. When I returned, having completed the task, there was another sack full waiting for me."

At the 1984 local elections, Adrian stood for election in the Blatchcombe Ward and polled over 50% of the vote to gain the seat from the Conservatives. At the time of his election Adrian was the youngest ever member of Torbay Borough Council.

"The Council was dominated by the Conservatives, they had 32 seats to our 4. I think we punched well above our weight and highlighted many of the issues that still confront the area today. In particular the need to diversify the economy to provide decent all year round employment, the lack of affordable housing for people on low incomes and the protection of Torbay's greatest asset, our natural environment."

In 1986, like many of his contemporaries, Adrian had to move away from Torbay to find full-time employment. "Two of the most important in my life at the time were politics and Torbay, but without a job it was impossible to continue. Councillor expenses were far less generous in those days and with the recession, employers were reluctant to take on people with public duty commitments."

Adrian spent the next three years in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, working for the Association of Liberal Councillors (later to become the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors) as a campaigns and information officer.

"One of my duties was to liaise with MPs with an interest in local government. The Party's Education Spokesman at the time was Paddy Ashdown MP, so I was frequently on the phone to his Secretary, Alison, not knowing at the time she would eventually become my wife."

Adrian finally met Alison two years later at a Parliamentary by-election where they had been sent to help. "We didn't win the by-election, but I like to think that we both came away winners."

In April 1989, Adrian was offered a job in the Liberal Whip's Office at the House of Commons. However, after four years of working at the centre of politics, Adrian hankered for a return to his roots in the Torbay area. The opportunity arose when the local Liberal Democrats advertised for a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate. Adrian saw this as his chance to do something for the people of his area, and returned to Paignton in 1990, bringing Alison with him, to lead the Liberal Democrat campaign for the Parliamentary seat.

Adrian was diagnosed as an Insulin Dependant Diabetic on the spring of 1991, a condition that he has overcome, and which has become one of his leading interests in Parliament. He says: "It took a little while to adjust to the new lifestyle of injections and blood tests, but I viewed it as an opportunity to show that diabetes need not prevent you from achieving what you want to do."

Adrian and Alison married in January 1992, and in the General Election of that year he cut the Conservative majority in Torbay from 8,820 to 5,787. A month later he found himself on the dole. "Politics really is winner takes all, and I have always said that if you are not prepared to lose then you really shouldn't stand for public office."

Rescue came six months later when Adrian successfully applied for a vacancy in Paddy Ashdown's office. He spent the next year organizing Paddy's acclaimed tour of life outside Westminster and accompanied him on some of the visits.

"One of Ashdown's great strengths is that he has had a life outside of Westminster and by spending some time on a trawler, working in a coalmine, staying with a hill farmer, among a dozen other activities, he was able to reinforce this and pull together some of his political ideas for tackling the problems ordinary people face."

Like Ashdown, Adrian wanted to tackle the problems that ordinary people face. He was determined to help his beloved Torbay somehow, and in 1994 he stood for the Devon & East Plymouth European Parliament seat. "I didn't expect to win or even come close at the outset, but the campaign team we pulled together across the county and the activity we generated in the run up to the election, caught the imagination of the public and had the Conservatives on the ropes in one of their safest Euro seats."

Adrian effectively won the seat by attracting nearly 85,000 votes to the Conservatives' 74,953. Unfortunately, a candidate whose surname was placed above Adrian's in the ballot, described himself as a "Literal Democrat", and attracted 10,203 of those votes and the Conservative was declared the winner with a majority of just 700.

"When the history of the late 20th century politics is written, I think that this little episode will be recognized for what it did - it kept the Conservatives in power for three more years. The Prime Minister had said a week before the 1994 Euro elections how many seats his party would have to lose for him to resign. Devon & East Plymouth would have been the seat that brought down John Major had a Literal Democrat not saved his skin."

Adrian secured the nomination to fight Torbay in late 1994 and carried on campaigning for Parliament. He was elected Member of Parliament for Torbay on May 1st 1997 in the closest of contests. With a majority of just 12 over the Conservatives, he joined the Liberal Democrat team in Parliament, speaking on Housing, and in his first Parliament, served as a Regional Whip for the South West.

Re-elected in 2001 with a majority of 6,708, he is currently Liberal Democrat shadow Tourism Spokesman. He is frequently told by his constituents that he is the best MP the area has ever had.

He still lives in Paignton with Alison.