Why I’m Standing in Shere – Quietly by Your Blue-Collar Worker Denis Podany

I didn’t arrive at this decision in a moment of anger.

There was no dramatic trigger. No speech. No argument that tipped everything over.

It came the way most serious decisions do – slowly, and then all at once.

By noticing things that didn’t sit right. By recognising patterns you try to ignore at first. By realising that saying nothing had started to feel like a decision in itself.

I call myself blue collar deliberately.

Not as branding. Not as theatre. But because that’s where I’ve lived.

I spent twenty years working for myself in construction – bathrooms, kitchens, the kind of work where if it leaks, it’s your fault. Where if it’s crooked, everyone sees it. Where your name travels further than any advert.

If a job fails, there’s no committee to blame. There’s just you.

Then 2008 hit. When the financial crash rolled through, work dried up; like it did for so many. I spent a year working as a carer in a dementia home.

Different tools. Same responsibility.

There’s nothing abstract about caring for someone who no longer remembers their own life. Nightmare shifts. Long nights. People frightened and confused at 3am. Families exhausted. You learn quickly that dignity isn’t a slogan – it’s something you defend quietly, minute by minute. You also learn patience. And humility.

Years later, when COVID shut things down again – as it did for countless trades – I got my HGV licence.

Started driving. Long roads. Long nights. Tight schedules. Mechanical failures at the worst times. You’re alone in a cab with your thoughts and a delivery that has to arrive whether you feel like it or not.

Construction. Care. Haulage. Three different worlds.

One common thread: If you don’t do the job properly, someone else is going to pay the price. And it’s your fault. That stays with you.

I live in Shere/Tillingbourne. It’s the sort of place where people still notice when something changes – not because they’re nostalgic, but because they pay attention.

They know when something’s rushed. They know when standards slip quietly. They know when common sense is being replaced by process.

And they rarely make a fuss about it. They just carry on – until carrying on starts to cost something.

I’m not standing for the new West Surrey unitary authority in Shere electoral district because I think everything is broken.

I’m not saying I’m perfect, either. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve got things wrong. I’ve learned some lessons the slow way – like most people do.

This isn’t about moral purity. It’s about refusing moral drift. It’s about noticing when too many things are being allowed to slide – not through malice, but through neglect.

They say the lion is asleep. That it won’t wake up.

But look closer. His eyes are closed. His breathing is deep. But one claw is out.

Look around.

There’s a line scratched in the ground.

You didn’t see him move, did you?

Now look at your own hand. Your nails are marked, chipped and scored. Your grip is tighter than it was a moment ago.

You remembered, didn’t you?

Standards don’t rise on their own. They rise when ordinary people decide that “good enough” … isn’t.

Local government in Surrey simply isn’t good enough. Things must change.

That’s why I’m standing in Shere.

Image credit on main page: Ordnance Survey.