'I was homeless and slept in my car - now I'm Cheshire East's mayor'
It was 2012 when David Edwardes found himself with nowhere to go and ended up sleeping in his car.He returned to Cheshire after being unable to make a living with his family in Spain.With nowhere to stay and being "more or less broke", he said he slept in the vehicle in Macclesfield Forest, an area of woodland and reservoirs in the hills above the town.Now, 13 years later he has just been elected as the mayor of Cheshire East by his fellow councillors.
"I came back to the UK with my tail between my legs, I just couldn't make a living in Spain and we were there a long time," he told BBC Politics North West."I couldn't find anywhere to live or stay and I came up here and parked up one weekend and stayed there and slept in the car".Here was a small parking area next to Ridgegate Reservoir.It is a beautiful spot surrounded by greenery and nature, and Edwardes said it was "very peaceful", although he did get questioned by a local police officer following reports of a stolen vehicle."A councillor who I went to school with contacted me and said 'I'll find a place for you' and he found a place in a friend of his' house. I stayed there until I got more or less sorted out," he said.
He has done various roles over the years, including working at his family business making curtains, running pubs and acting as an extra.But it was a play area that led to him deciding to enter politics."If there's a catalyst, there was a play area in Tytherington and it was dreadful," he said."There were the officials standing there, grinning away and saying how marvellous it was and the local people in Tytherington were really upset about it, and I thought 'I think I can do better than that'", he said."I don't know quite how I've become mayor of Cheshire East Council, but it happened anyway."He credited a bit of "luck", adding: "If I'm totally honest with you, I'm not politically driven, I'm an independent."It's a very nice job that I'm enjoying, but it is only for a year".
'Love every cobbled street'
Edwardes said he was reminded of a comment from one of his friends from his local pub."He says 'money's not important in life, the important thing is to be lucky', and I like to think I've just been fortunate with the way things have gone."So what do his friends in the pub think about him being mayor now?"They take the mickey out of me and they go 'hey mayor, hey mayor'," he said, adding that they do also bow to him in a jokey way."They never give me any sort of hassle or problems about the bins or if there's a pothole, they leave me alone."He was elected mayor at Cheshire East's full council meeting earlier this month.During his time in the position, he said he wanted to meet everyone in the borough who turns 100."I don't know if it's possible but I thought it can't be a huge amount of people who reach 100," he said."But I don't know and I'll probably be inundated with them."Edwardes said the reason he did what he did was because of his love of the local area."I just love Macclesfield, I love every cobbled street and every house, and all the people are fantastic and it's the same with the borough, I just love the whole of Cheshire East."It's a lovely, lovely place."
See more Cheshire stories from the BBC and follow BBC North West on X. For more local politics coverage, BBC Politics North West is on BBC One on Sunday at 10:00am and on BBC iPlayer.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
14 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Copy Reform and you'll get eaten, Kinnock tells Starmer
Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader who now sits in the House of Lords, said the Prime Minister had been 'not well advised' on how to tackle the rise of Nigel Farage's party. He suggested that attempts to ape Reform's language were 'mortally stupid', and advised the party that 'achievement' in Government was the best way to counter the Reform threat. Lord Kinnock told Prospect Magazine: 'Appeasers get eaten. It's very important to remember that if people are offered two versions of a particular political brand, they will always choose the genuine one.' He added: 'If a progressive party is trying to use the vocabulary of isolationism or segregation or division, it's the same. It is silly to do that. It isn't evil, but it is very, very silly – maybe mortally stupid.' The former Labour leader's intervention is the latest development in growing tensions within the Labour Party about how to tackle the rising tide of Reform support. His remarks came after the Prime Minister announced measures to tackle immigration and a tightening of the system, warning that without such a move the UK risked becoming an 'island of strangers'. The speech followed Labour 's drubbing in the local elections last month, where Reform won hundreds of council seats and seized the parliamentary seat of Runcorn and Helsby. The comments were supported by some figures in Red Wall seats, which are under greater threat from the surge in Reform support, but denounced by many Left-wing Labour MPs. Lord Kinnock said: 'I think there are elements in and around the Labour party encouraging that as a way of responding to Reform, and they are fundamentally, 100 per cent, 22-carat wrong.' He added: 'I don't fear Reform, but I do think we ought to fight them rather harder and with more purpose.' The peer told the magazine: 'The playbook is familiar to anybody who studied the 1930s in Europe and or indeed in the United States of America. 'I'm not saying we are in any sense slipping towards some kind of fascist system… But those factors and the way in which they generate division and envy and isolationism – they're unhealthy features of any democracy.' On how to beat Reform, he said: 'Nothing replaces achievement in government, [concentrating on] what people regard to be the primary issues on the agenda, which is to say: health, decent jobs, affordable costs and wages that can meet those costs.' Lord Kinnock led the Labour Party before famously losing the 1992 election to Sir John Major despite the polls being in his favour, leading to another five years of Conservative rule. The pro-Europe politician said that decisions to use phrases such as 'island of strangers' and not to scrap the two-child benefit cap were based on post-Brexit preconceptions of the electorate. He said: 'Certainly there were elements among the advisory team who had an overreaction to the reason for, and the consequence of, the Brexit referendum vote. I think that overreaction has lasted through till now. 'I don't think that they are reactionary individuals. I don't think they're frightened individuals. I think they have overreacted to a misinterpretation of what happened in 2016.' The former leader went on to suggest that Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, should consider a wealth tax, citing as an example a two per cent levy on assets above £10 million. 'Property taxation in our country, asset taxation, is outdated,' he added, as he urged the party's senior figures to be bolder. 'There's a degree of steadiness from Keir which, on a good day, is very, very reassuring. However, that can translate into a paralytic caution. That means that this government, much as I love them – and they know I do – has got a kind of audacity deficit.' Lord Kinnock appeared at Sir Keir's victory speech on the morning of July 5, when the Prime Minister led the party to a landslide win.
The Independent
17 minutes ago
- The Independent
JD Vance silence on Musk may be the most Game of Thrones tactic ever — and Trump might not even notice
The kingdom is in turmoil, the great Houses of Musk and Trump at war, and their subjects forced to choose sides. But as the scheming Littlefinger in Game of Thrones famously said as he plotted to take the King's place: 'chaos is a ladder.' And so it is for JD Vance, the ostensibly loyal vice president, and perhaps the person who stands to benefit the most from the chaos unleashed by the feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump — which is perhaps why he's remaining uncharacteristically subdued. Vance has never been one to shy away from a fight, especially an online one, especially if it's in defense of his boss. He once launched a 400-word diatribe against historian Niall Ferguson for criticizing Trump's Ukraine policy, slamming his 'moralistic garbage' and 'historical illiteracy.' He had no problem accusing senior members of his own party of ' pettiness ' for voting against what Trump wanted, and mocked world leaders who've had run ins with the president. The practicing Catholic even found himself on the wrong side of the Pope himself when he got into another online beef with British politician Rory Stewart over Trump's deportation policies. So one would expect the online warrior to rush to the defense of his president in response to the firestorm of abuse unleashed by Musk against the president on Thursday, which began with accusations of ungratefulness and ended with claims of him being close to Jeffrey Epstein. But Vance has been remarkably quiet. His only public comment at the time of writing has been the kind of terse statement a wife gives in support of a cheating politician spouse. 'President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads. I'm proud to stand beside him,' Vance wrote on X. The next day, he continued with his lawyerly posts. 'There are many lies the corporate media tells about President Trump. One of the most glaring is that he's impulsive or short-tempered. Anyone who has seen him operate under pressure knows that's ridiculous,' he wrote. 'It's (maybe) the single biggest disconnect between fake media perception and reality,' he went on. Where was the combative Vance who demanded the Ukrainian president say thank you to his boss in the Oval Office? The one who told Kamala Harris to 'go to hell' over the Biden administration's handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Instead, Vance did not utter Musk's name in the 24 hours since the feud burst into the open. Vance was asked by Trump to remain diplomatic in his dealings with Musk, The Independent learned from a source familiar with the situation. Regardless, the VP has other motivations for keeping quiet. For years, he has been dogged by rumors of dual loyalties between the tech billionaires who fueled his rise and the president he now serves. Vance first came to public attention as the best-selling author of Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir of a rough Appalachian upbringing that many liberals praised as an intellectual explanation of Trump's appeal to the white working class. But before that book set him on a path to Congress and the Senate, he was already being courted by a set of right-wing tech billionaires known as the 'PayPal mafia' — the billionaires Musk, David Sacks and Peter Thiel, who worked together at the pioneering online payments company back in the late Nineties and early Noughties and were bound together by a belief in deregulation, libertarianism and later, by darker right-wing ideology that railed against multiculturalism. Vance was working in venture capital at the time and went to work for Thiel at his San Francisco investment house, Mithril Capital. Thiel would be instrumental to Vance's rise, backing his campaign for Senate in 2021-22 to the tune of $15 million, and reportedly introduced Vance to Trump. The trio of Musk, Sacks and Thiel were instrumental in convincing Trump to choose Vance as his running mate, seeing in him an ideological ally, the libertarian tech investor who could one day take over as president. Some have gone so far as to call Vance a Manchurian Candidate for the tech elite. When the feud between Musk and Trump spilled out into the open, Musk was not shy about announcing his desire for Vance to take over as president. He responded to a tweet calling for Trump to be impeached and replaced with Vance with one word: 'Yes.' That is not an empty threat. Vance's path to the White House would inevitably require the support of Musk, the man who spent $395 million on electing Republicans in 2024. So his decision to ignore Musk's call for mutiny is an interesting — and calculated — choice. Much like Littlefinger, Vance has made sharp ideological turns and formed strategic alliances to find his way to within arm's length of the throne. He was once vehemently opposed to Trump, only to radically change course to stand by his side in his quest for power. But, spoiler alert, his fictional counterpart's calculating and maneuvering didn't end well for him. Trump spent his entire first term weeding out traitors, and claims to have gotten very good at it over the years. Will he be able to sniff out Vance?
The Sun
20 minutes ago
- The Sun
£4million a DAY migrant hotel bill will continue to spiral unless Labour does three things
Trip advisors THE woke brigade in the Home Office who spent years revolting against Tory efforts to curb illegal migration finally have an incentive to drop their opposition. Sensibly, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said she will spare deep cuts in the department — and potential job losses — IF it saves money on the spiralling hotel bill for migrants. 1 And the faster Home Secretary Yvette Cooper's army of leftie civil servants meet these new targets, the more cash she can keep for other projects. Skint Britain forks out £4million every day to house people who largely have no right to be here. The problem is that the number of new arrivals isn't slowing down. Unless Labour ends the golden ticket to the El Dorado paradise of benefits, free housing and illegal work, that hotel bill will continue to rise. Reform act He has Labour pedalling leftwards over welfare and the Tories rightwards on immigration. The Reform leader's ear is well-tuned to discontent with the Government. A desire for real change has delivered control of local councils to his fledgling party for the first time. His problem now is how to show Reform can actually govern — without falling into mini-meltdowns like the ones caused by the exits of chairman Zia Yusuf and MP Rupert Lowe. Reform's surge has been stunning. But being a one-showman band will only get Farage so far. Court out COULD the days of the European Court of Human Rights ruling over our borders finally be numbered? Even the head of the European Council, which oversees the unelected court, is starting to accept it will have to adapt to the public's concerns. Leaders across Europe are waking up to the problems caused by mass migration and want urgent legal reform. And Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is ready to quit the court — as is Reform. Roll with it Apparently, it all kicked off in Tokyo after tourists saw a waxwork of Greggs' pastry snack at Madame Tussauds. No word yet on whether it tasted better than a vegan sausage roll.
