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Candidate Adrian Berrill-Cox: ‘You play the cards you are dealt’ |
Wheelchair-user barrister to fight Corbyn at polls
Tory candidate describes election contest as ‘difficult but can be achieved’
BARRISTER Adrian Berrill-Cox, who has muscular atrophy and uses an electric wheelchair, has been chosen by Conservatives to fight Islington North at the next general election.
With little movement in his limbs, he needs care assistants to carry out routine tasks. Mr Berrill-Cox happily describes himself as handicapped, now a politically incorrect term.
“My mother always said that being handicapped meant you’re as good a horse as everyone else – but you’re just carrying a bit more weight,” he said.
Aged 44 and single, he works for the Financial Services Authority.
He compares his campaign against Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, who has held the seat for 26 years, to getting around in a wheelchair: “Difficult but can be achieved.”
He points out that the previous Tory candidate managed to win 12 per cent of the vote in 2005, a not unreasonable achievement in an area traditionally Labour.
Mr Berrill-Cox lives in Chelsea in a specially adapted flat but would hope to move to the borough if elected. “Mr Corbyn I’m sure is a decent enough chap,” Mr Berrill-Cox said. “But he’s part of a Labour government which hasn’t done awfully well.”
He will be campaigning in defence of the NHS, which he says has provided wonderful support for him over the years. “But I do believe there is a lot of waste in the health service and it could be done a lot better. Money is going into a black hole,” he said.
Street crime and the problems of benefit dependency are among issues he will highlight, as is the Lib Dem-Labour pact to put up council tax by 2.5 per cent.
“I’ve already started canvassing on council estates,” he added. “I’ve come across some extraordinary stories of people looking out for each other, like the woman who cooks lunch for her neighbour of 90.”
He admits that being in a wheelchair makes him a bit of a novelty. “You could say the Conservatives were brave to pick me,” he said. “But being in a wheelchair can bring out the best in people.”
He grew up in Salisbury with a supportive family who encouraged him to study, even though he was a slow starter and went to boarding school for children with special needs but only managed to gain four O-levels. “I felt that people like me were supposed to weave baskets or put stickers on bottles,” he said.
He went on to sixth-form college and then Reading University, where he studied law. “My philosophy is that you play the cards you are dealt,” he said. “I’ve been dealt a very mixed hand. But I’m playing the good cards pretty well.
“People with disabilities are often very good at discovering how to get the best out of life. Also people respond well to us because they know we have had to struggle through life.” |
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