Thomas - What do you love about the UK?

We went to a little trip to London. We spent our days mainly eating and shopping, but managed to squeeze in three podcast recordings. We visited Thomas on our trip to the UK in December. Neither of us met him in person before, so we were quite excited to talk to the youngest borough council member of the Liberal Democrats. Thomas is Borough Councillor for Wildridings & Central Bracknell. But let’s start from the top. As a member of the council, you normally have plenty of different topics on your agenda. There might be voices that say the work of someone in the council consist mostly of ‘moving bins and naming streets’. That is a big part of the job, but in general it is about changing situations people have to deal with everyday on their way to work or to school. It is about a missing crossing, a dangerous junction or a library that has to be closed because of budget cuts. “It is about working with people and to see if you can move the conversation.” Thomas shares the story about the day he got elected as a council member and how it felt knowing that he had actually gotten a seat that was conservative for a really long time. He also gave us an insight how working with mostly older men looks like and what he has to do to be taken seriously.