Dusty
September 19th 04, 02:27 AM
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/mail/tm_objectid=14656853&method=full&siteid=50002&headline=dads-to-fight-election-name_page.html
Dads to fight election Sep 18 2004
By Jessica Shepherd, Evening Mail
A Birmingham dad representing controversial activist group Fathers 4
Justice is set to battle for the Redditch seat in the next General Election,
it was revealed today.
John Ison, aged 35, hopes to topple Labour's Deputy Minister for
Women, Jacqui Smith.
Fellow campaigners are also eyeing other seats in inner-city
Birmingham and Sandwell and making preparations to contest them, he said.
Dad-of-two Mr Ison, who is the Birmingham representative for the
group, said the aim was to fight seats to highlight issues surrounding
family law. We intend to target ministers in marginal constituencies such as
inner-city Birmingham and also any ministers that we believe have made
howlers when it comes to fathers' rights," he said.
"We will contend seats, such as Redditch and some in Birmingham, to
bring home issues surrounding family law. We will see to it that the law
changes."
Mr Ison, from Hall Green, is separated from his wife of six years and
said he had been banned from seeing his twin boys for nearly two months by
the courts.
"Not seeing my children breaks my heart. I see kids and their dads in
the park or wherever and I get very, very upset.
"I am a loving father and I have been excluded completely from the
lives of the people I love the most," he claimed.
"Ever since contact with my children was stopped I have been on a very
downward spiral."
Ms Smith was not immediately available for comment today.
Mr Ison, who is a governor at Coughton Primary School, Warwickshire,
claimed up to 200 from Fathers 4 Justice across the country were getting
ready to battle for seats in the General Election.
The final number would depend on how well it fared in its first fight
for a political seat Hartlepool this month.
On Monday, one campaigner scaled the walls of Buckingham Palace
dressed as Batman. Mr Ison said Fathers 4 Justice's Birmingham membership
had "considerably increased" since the high profile stunt involving friend
Jason Hatch, pictured above.
Dads to fight election Sep 18 2004
By Jessica Shepherd, Evening Mail
A Birmingham dad representing controversial activist group Fathers 4
Justice is set to battle for the Redditch seat in the next General Election,
it was revealed today.
John Ison, aged 35, hopes to topple Labour's Deputy Minister for
Women, Jacqui Smith.
Fellow campaigners are also eyeing other seats in inner-city
Birmingham and Sandwell and making preparations to contest them, he said.
Dad-of-two Mr Ison, who is the Birmingham representative for the
group, said the aim was to fight seats to highlight issues surrounding
family law. We intend to target ministers in marginal constituencies such as
inner-city Birmingham and also any ministers that we believe have made
howlers when it comes to fathers' rights," he said.
"We will contend seats, such as Redditch and some in Birmingham, to
bring home issues surrounding family law. We will see to it that the law
changes."
Mr Ison, from Hall Green, is separated from his wife of six years and
said he had been banned from seeing his twin boys for nearly two months by
the courts.
"Not seeing my children breaks my heart. I see kids and their dads in
the park or wherever and I get very, very upset.
"I am a loving father and I have been excluded completely from the
lives of the people I love the most," he claimed.
"Ever since contact with my children was stopped I have been on a very
downward spiral."
Ms Smith was not immediately available for comment today.
Mr Ison, who is a governor at Coughton Primary School, Warwickshire,
claimed up to 200 from Fathers 4 Justice across the country were getting
ready to battle for seats in the General Election.
The final number would depend on how well it fared in its first fight
for a political seat Hartlepool this month.
On Monday, one campaigner scaled the walls of Buckingham Palace
dressed as Batman. Mr Ison said Fathers 4 Justice's Birmingham membership
had "considerably increased" since the high profile stunt involving friend
Jason Hatch, pictured above.