Shettleston Councillor, Thomas Kerr Thomas Kerr is not your stereotypical Tory: no private education, no nanny growing up, no connections to Eton and no silver spoon wedged firmly wedged between his teeth. In fact, he is the exact opposite. He grew up in a high rise in Cranhill and attended Eastbank Academy, a school in Shettleston. From a young age he’s had to deal with parents addicted to drugs. Kerr was disadvantaged from the start but didn’t let that stop him from achieving the impossible (or at least implausible): a seat in the East-End of Glasgow’s Shettleston ward. A ward that only a few years ago was reported to have a life expectancy lower than that of war-torn Iraq. Kerr explains he is a Tory, not despite growing up poor, but because he grew up poor. “To me the only party that offered somebody from a working-class background, like myself, opportunity was the Conservatives. “To me, the SNP and Labour’s ideology is to try to keep people in their b...
Scottish journalist and musician