Shaun Bailey

Shaun Bailey (born 1971 in North Kensington, London) is a British Afro-Caribbean youth worker and Conservative politician. He stood for the London constituency of Hammersmith as a Conservative at the 2010 general election, and served as the Prime Minister's Special Adviser on Youth and Crime from 2010-2013. In 2016, he was elected as a list candidate for the Conservative Party for the London Assembly.

Bailey was born in North Kensington, London in 1971, where he and his younger brother were raised by his mother and extended family in the absence of his father, a lorry driver. The family are of Jamaican origin. From about 13 years of age he started to get to know his father, along with a second family his father had started, and became close to his stepsisters and stepbrother.

Bailey attended Henry Compton School in Fulham and left with five CSEs. When Bailey was 12 years old, his mother sent him to join the Army Cadet Force in White City. When Bailey was about 19, he became a Sergeant-Instructor and stayed in the Cadets for another 10 years in Askew. His time spent in the Cadets gave him an understanding of 'Britishness', and he felt much less separated from the world around him.

At about the age of 12 or 13, he started going to the Jubilee Sports Centre to take up gymnastics, which occupied much of his remaining spare time. After this, he became a devoted member of Childs Hill Gymnastics Display team, a well known and respected gymnastics club in London who travel all around the world. They went on to win many gymnastic competitions, both national and international. Shaun still visits the gymnasts when he can to offer his support. After leaving secondary school, Bailey attended Paddington College, where he achieved two A-levels and a BTEC.

Bailey graduated with a 2.2 in computer-aided engineering from London South Bank University. Previously, he worked as a security guard at Wembley Stadium and the Trocadero to put himself through university. After witnessing the route to crime taken by many of his peers, Bailey became a drug-worker for The Blenheim Project, and later co-founded "My Generation", a charity devoted to addressing the social problems that affect struggling young people and their families, such as anti-social behaviour, drug abuse, crime, pregnancy, educational underachievement, and unemployment. The charity received attention shortly before the general election in 2010 over accounting irregularities. The charity closed down in 2012 due to a lack of funding.

Bailey was drafted in as Chairman of the Trustees at the Pepper Pot Day Centre (2007–2009), an organisation in West London that provided for the African and Caribbean elders and adults with special needs.

Shaun is currently the Chairman of the Panel of Judges of the Spirit of London Awards.

Bailey is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, writing for the Centre and for various newspapers, including the Evening Standard, the Times, and the Independent. His main area of specialisation is youth crime, welfare and charity and he is a member of the Police Community Consultation Group and has worked closely with the Independent Police Complaints Authority.

On 29 March 2007 he was selected at an open primary to be the Conservative candidate for the new parliamentary seat of Hammersmith, a key marginal seat in West London. His campaign has focused on issues surrounding families and social responsibility. He failed to win the seat, losing by 3,549 votes, achieving only a 0.5% swing (against an average swing to the Conservatives in London of 2.5%).

Since the 2010 Election, Bailey has gone on to take up a post in Downing Street, as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Youth and Crime, keeping him at the forefront of the Conservative Party despite failing to win Hammersmith. He focussed on issues surrounding Government youth, crime, welfare and community policy, and has been influential in shaping the agenda on these issues, particularly in the aftermath of the 2011 England Riots. But early in 2013, Bailey lost his job as a special adviser, alleging that he was pushed out of Downing Street by the Prime Minister’s "clique" of Old Etonians.

Bailey has been very critical of many of the Coalition's policy in particular police cuts, cuts to youth services and housing benefit cuts under the Coalition. In addition, Bailey was interviewed on the BBC's Newsnight programme in March 2011, where he was introduced as 'Ambassador for the Big Society'.

In the run-up to the May 2015 General Election, Bailey was unsuccessful in attempts to be named the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Kensington, South Croydon (where he didn't make the final round) as well as Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

In October 2015, Bailey was selected as a Conservative candidate on the London Assembly top-up list. He is placed third on the list, a position previously held by Victoria Borwick, former Assembly Member, now MP for Kensington.

Bailey has expressed concerns about liberalism, saying "The more liberal we have been, the more our communities have suffered". and "The key wickedness that the Government has perpetrated is the idea that government can pay for everything. If you continually give people things and ask for nothing back you rob them of their will. People have to be involved in their own redemption. There are people sitting at home now who don't work because it's not worth their while to do it under the benefits system. That's wrong."

• Centre for Policy Studies [1]
• Bailey S and Najjar N, 'Time for a Dose of Euro-Realism', Smart Government, 2015