Published: Wednesday, 24th February, 2010 4:24pm

It's non-party time

IT'S not often I wished I lived in Wokingham. But last week I did.

I was there to meet Mark Ashwell, self made successful businessman who seems to be on a high 24-hours a day.

Mark has always been in the papers, not just because he is on endless committees, both in business and in the community, but because he makes a point of swimming against the tide and taking on lost causes.

Why else would someone set out to be a respectable double glazing salesman? Yet his TradeMark Windows fought the industry to create a jewel in a very murky crown.

Now he is standing as an independent MP for Wokingham using all the business and marketing skills, he has developed. While I sat in his boardroom with my cup of coffee, Mark went out to get something. He came back and said excitedly: "We're going to win." I thought he had just heard it on Radio Berkshire.

He invited me to see the campaign bike - a bizarre contraption, complete with speaker and campaign poster someone has to ride around the constiuency with. He played the campaign song to me - which isn't all that bad. By the time I came out, I was ready to put my cross in the box. He has no leader and talks of others he admires as community MPs - including Martin Bell and surprisingly perhaps Reading West's Labour MP Martin Salter.

The choice of mainstream parties is like choosing between Man Utd or Chelsea. If you're one of their supporters it matters. If you're not, it makes no difference. They hate each other but that won't engage the outsiders. It will put them off.

An independent can be local, can answer questions truthfully without having to parrot the policies agreed by the party and is allowed to vote his or her own way.

As Mark says in this month's Businesss Review (see the link above) business people are not all in it for the money.

If only the same could be said of many of our mainstream MPs.