For over a decade, Shaun Bailey has tried and failed to get into parliament. Last week it looked like he might have finally made it – only for one last obstacle to be put in his way.
New footage emerged showing dancing at a lockdown-breaking Christmas Party organised for his team at Tory HQ, prompting the Met to investigate. Mr Bailey says he is “very upset” and had not seen the footage.
The release of the footage, which dates from 2020, comes at a poor time for for the politician.
Just days earlier he had been nominated for a life peerage in the House of Lords by Boris Johnson – an honour which he is now being urged by critics to reconsider.
Turning down the peerage would be another blow for Mr Bailey in a string of political defeats stretching back to the time of David Cameron.
In 2010 he stood in the marginal seat of Hammersmith, but lost out by just 3,549 votes after the Tories failed to win a majority at the general election.
He tried again in 2017 in Lewisham and Penge, but lost again, this time by over 23,000 votes – a gap buoyed by an expectedly strong Labour showing.
Not undeterred, Mr Bailey, who was born in North Kensington, became the Tory London mayoral candidate at the 2021 election – losing to Sadiq Khan.
In some ways, Mr Bailey has been unlucky. As a born-and-bred Londoner who has always stood for election in the capital, he has suffered for the waning of Tory fortunes in the city.
He was also closely associated with the liberal conservatism of David Cameron, whose star in the party has faded in favour of a different brand of Tory. Had others remained in charge, he might have found a more winnable seat than Lewisham.
Mr Bailey has been a Conservative member of the London Assembly since 2016, where he previously chaired the police and crime committee. He stepped down from that particular responsibility after the lockdown allegations emerged.
But the lockdown antics would not be the first time he has had a brush with the law.
In 2018, while appearing on an episode of the BBC Radio 4 series The House I Grew Up In, Mr Bailey admitted to having been a burglar in his youth.
“I had a particular group of friends who indulged in a burglary. I had done it with them,” he told the programme.
In an ironic twist one of the candidate’s mayoral campaign pledges was to give pensioners free burglar alarms and to set up an anti-burglary flying squad.
Mr Bailey, who has a 2:2 degree in computer aided engineering from London South Bank University, has done his fair share of work outside politics.
Before becoming a politician he did jobs including working as a security guard at Wembley Stadium, sweeping factory floors, and delivering beer.
In 2006 he co-founded a charity called MyGeneration, which promised to address social problems affecting struggling young people.
The organisation’s establishment was timely – in 2010 then Tory leader David Cameron was to make “the Big Society” one of his key political themes, and Mr Bailey found himself as one of the most recognisable faces of the idea.
But the charity ultimately closed in 2012 due to financial problems, and the Big Society as a concept was itself memory-holed not long after.
Has Mr Bailey finally found his way into parliament, or could it be snatched from his grasp once again? We will find out in the coming weeks.
