The Pirate Party candidates

Pirate Party have announced who'll be our candidates for the election:

Andrew Robinson - Worcester
Andrew Robinson (41) is the leader of the Pirate Party UK, and a professional graphic designer. Andrew has long been involved in the pirate movement, and has lead the party since its formation in July 2009. Andrew believes that "politicians need to learn that blindly doing everything they are told by 'rights holders' has consequences at the ballot box. Voting pirate is the best way to remind them that we hold some rights too."

Finlay Archibald - Glasgow Central
A maths student at Strathclyde University, Finlay Archibald (19) has been heavily involved in running the vibrant Scottish branch of the Pirate Party UK. Since joining the party, Finlay has founded the first Pirate student society in the UK. Finlay wants to engage with the people of Glasgow to give them an MP that they can be proud of, something which Labour has proven they cannot provide.

Tim Dobson - Manchester Gorton
Tim Dobson (19) is a systems engineer who helped set up Digital Freedom in Education and Youth, an organisation dedicated to supporting digital rights in education. As a founding member of the Manchester Free Software group, Tim is also heavily involved in the free and open source software movement.

Shaun Dyer - Leicester West
Working as an IT systems auditor, Shaun Dyer (26) has lived in Leicester for almost a decade. As an experienced computer security professional, he is ideally situated to bring to parliament a real understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented by Digital Britain.

David Geraghty - Derby North
David Geraghty (19) is a student and avid music fan. He believes in supporting artists without penalising fans, something that the record labels have demonstrated an unwillingness to do. David believes that the music industry does not currently give adequate support to upcoming artists, and wants to prevent the abuse of fans by this industry.

Graeme Lambert - Bury North
A keen local campaigner and sportsman, Graeme Lambert (18) hopes to run a campaign based on transparency after charges were brought against Bury North's current MP regarding his expenses claims. Announcing his candidacy, Graeme said, "The people of Bury North deserve an honest MP that will represent them properly after the disgraceful actions of David Chaytor, and that person is me."

Luke Leighton - South West Surrey
Luke Leighton (40) is a free software developer with extensive experience in project management and software engineering. He understands the importance of the increasing impact that the Internet and software are making on our way of life, and is acutely aware of the problems inherent in handing control over to multi-national corporations, through the innocuous right to enforce "intellectual property".

Jack Nunn - constituency to be announced (London Region)
Jack Nunn is a semi-professional musician who has previously worked with the Pirate Parties internationally and believes that the Pirate movement "is fundamentally a civil rights movement, working to protect the human rights and basic freedoms of individuals". To this end he has recently contacted the Joint Committee on Human Rights about the impact of the Digital Economy Bill.

Mark Sims - East Ham
As an ICT teacher, Mark Sims (37) has a strong appreciation of the implications of copyright, patents, privacy and freedom of speech in the digital world. Mark feels that this understanding has been poorly demonstrated by Stephen Timms, Minister for Digital Britain, one of his opponents in East Ham.

Alexander van Terheyden - Bethnal Green and Bow
A financial expert with a long history of political campaigning, Alexander van Terheyden (29) has a strong understanding of both the social and economic impacts of copyright and patent law. Mr van Terheyden wishes to reign-in the "big brother state" and defend civil liberties and freedom of speech.

As you may be aware, I live in Bethnal Green & Bow and so will be voting for Alexander van Terheyden. Tweet