The upcoming General Election could be one of the closest fought elections for a number of years and, on the eve of the crucial vote, an author, political blogger and former politician from Croxley Green has released a humorous book examining the issues from his own unique perspective.

A Dark Stranger’s Guide to Politics by Kerron Cross takes a wry look at the world of politics, encouraging people from all backgrounds to get actively involved in politics, regardless of their background or views, and is full of anecdotes and silly stories.

“I want to encourage people to go out on May 7 and make a difference,“ says Kerron, who started writing about politics, with his tongue firmly in his cheek, in his award-winning blog The Voice of the Delectable Left, based on his own experiences in politics.

“With this book, I wanted to show people that politics is more normal than they might think – it feels like a bit of a closed shop and people think ’Oh, it’s not for me’.“

Kerron, 37, is very well placed to give us his views, having worked at every level in the political process – he formerly led the Labour group on the Three Rivers District Council as a councillor for South Oxhey and before that had been vice chairman of Croxley Green Parish Council. He was then a Parliamentary candidate in south west Herts at the 2005 General Election. While all of this was going on, he was also a Parliamentary assistant who worked for a number of MPs in Westminster for more than ten years.

“I got involved in the parish council in Croxley to help with repairing local potholes and picking up litter and doing recycling,“ Kerron remembers.

“It was non-party political group so I kind of got involved in politics by accident. People aren’t paid at the parish level, so the image of politicians doing it for the money and the expenses is quite funny. Whatever party people are in, they first get involved because they genuinely want to make a difference in people’s lives. Whatever their motivation, that’s what underpins it.“

Kerron was then asked to stand for Labour at South Oxhey on the Three Rivers District Council and was in his element leading the Labour group in the area for eight years, dealing primarily with housing issues, coming home from his full-time job as a Parliamentary assistant and dealing with his local case work in the evenings and at weekends.

“Parliamentary selection is really restrictive and exclusive and really hard to get into, so I would say that being a local councillor is far more important, and rewarding, because you have that local connection with people,“ Kerron continues. “You get to know people on your doorstep, you’re from the area yourself, and if people don’t like what you’re doing they’ll come and tell you, which I think is really good.

“This is a problem that the politicians have, this disconnect with ordinary people.“

Kerron left politics to go and work for the Archbishop of York as his director of communications, a position he held for four years before taking up his current job, communications and policy manager for Hestia, a charity supporting and empowering vulnerable people across London.

He’s not actively involved in the political scene any more, but still takes an interest in what’s going on, both nationally and in Watford.

“I think this election is going to be interesting because it could go any way at all,“ Kerron says. “We don’t know if there’s going to be a new government, if there’ll be an overall majority, we could have the Lib Dems deciding who’s in power even if they don’t get the votes.

“There’s been a low turn-out at recent elections but I think people will go out there and vote this time because there are so many different options now. I think we’re going to see a lot of strange results that people aren’t really expecting. And that’s great – politics is too important to be left to the politicians!“

  • A Dark Stranger’s Guide to Politics is available on Kindle and as a paperback from Amazon.