Clive Jones: Wokingham's Next MP?

It is a strange turn of events that a town like Wokingham could have a new MP after the upcoming general election. But after 36 years of having Sir John Redwood, even the bluest of blue constituencies is turning the tides.

Polls are predicting that the Liberal Democrats could take one of the safest conservative seats in the upcoming general election.

I sit across from Clive Jones, the man predicted to win, at 10:30 on a Friday morning in the Wokingham Liberal Democrat offices. It’s a hardly glamorous location, sitting beside a machine that automatically folds leaflets that are set to be posted through doors.

Various people pop in and out, some to use this machine that is particularly handy, given the number of leaflets the Liberal Democrats are posting through letterboxes. In January alone, they sent 42,000. This is only part of their consistent operation to win over voters. Similarly, meeting me is only a part of Clive’s busy schedule of the day. After our meeting, he needs to take some photographs and film a video; go canvassing; write a press release, and finally catch up on his emails in the evening.

Prospects have never been so strong for the Liberal Democrats in Wokingham. They have an office, something they didn’t have in the previous general elections. As well as this, they now control the council, have two full-time employees and over 200 volunteers. Their candidate for election in 2019, Dr Philip Lee, only lost to Redwood by 7383 votes – a figure Jones knows off by heart.

So, what could go wrong? This is quite the first question to pose to Clive Jones.

“Are we recording?” he jokes.

“We’re doing all the right things”, he says. “We’re knocking on loads and loads of doors. I’m out nearly every day knocking on doors, talking to residents, and we’re communicating to them with our leaflets, every month.

“And we’ve been doing that now since July 2022. So now, the recognition of me on the doorstep is very very good, and largely very positive – 90% of the people will say to me ‘Oh we know who you are!’, and they’ll say it with a smile on their face.”

For the Liberal Democrats to win, strategic voting will play an important role. Not only will they require traditional Tory supporters to switch their vote, but also Labour voters to strategically vote. This is a point they have been constantly highlighting on their campaign leaflets; with 10% of Wokingham voters currently supporting Labour, these votes will be essential to win.

“The vast majority of people realise that I have the best chance of beating John Redwood.”, Clive says. “So many Labour party supporters say they are going to lend me their vote. They’ve seen our literature, and they see that we are the nearest challengers to the Conservatives, and they desperately want them out in Wokingham.

“They realise that I am the best choice, and lots of Conservatives have become so disillusioned with the Conservative party.”

Clive has always been interested in politics, particularly liberal philosophy as a teenager, and joined the Social Democratic Party. But he only decided to enter politics after a decades-long career in the Toy industry when he was diagnosed with breast cancer – incredibly rare for men – in 2008.

“We had two daughters, and I was travelling all over the world because we were a manufacturer and importer and designer of toys, so it was a very busy life, and there was no time to devote to politics.”

Speaking about his cancer diagnosis, he says: “My children were 13 and 15. I had to go through two operations and three months of chemotherapy, three months of radio therapy, that’s quite a big thing to be going through. So, I suppose that changed my life, and I just wanted to get involved a bit in politics, just help out, deliver a few leaflets, that kind of thing.”

But soon, he was being asked to run for council – which he did, and which he won, soon becoming leader of the cabinet. Soon after, he was being asked to run for MP, and ran unsuccessfully in 2015 and 2017.

Jones comes across incredibly focused. He has the slick communication skills of a councillor and future MP. His answers to my questions are long and informative, and highly convincing. He is also incredibly positive. But why wouldn’t he be?

“It’s going to be an interesting election. We have a very very good chance of winning, the best ever chance of the Liberal Democrats winning here. We’re getting a lot of Conservatives coming over to us and saying that they just can’t vote Conservative anymore because what they’ve demonstrated over the last four years is that too many of them are in it for themselves, too many of them have a very loose association with the truth.”

Jones is also positive that Wokingham remains a great place to live, despite the huge change it has gone under. In the last decade alone, its population size has increased by 15%. New housing developments have sprung up across its green spaces, growing the physical size of the town massively.

Aware these changes have left some voters, particularly older, feeling disgruntled, Clive says: “There’s lots of people, especially people who moved here thirty, forty years ago, moved out of London for their job and liked the area because it was semi-rural, are now getting quite fed up that the character of the area is changing.”

Clive, who moved to Wokingham as a young child, is confident that these changes aren’t all negative.

“It’s changed an awful lot. And in that forty years, fifty years, we’ve had 40,000 houses built here. The country lanes that were Lower Earley, I learnt to drive on those country lanes. Lower Earley didn’t exist as I was learning to drive as a 17-year-old.

“There’s been huge changes, but it’s still a great place to live.”

And, perhaps, Wokingham will become a more interesting place with Clive Jones as MP.