About Nick
Hello there.
I specialise in taking the scenic route to things.
A 27 year old law graduate, I now work as Director of civil liberties and privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch. I’m a former President of Durham Students Union, and stood in the 2010 General Election for the Conservatives, achieving a 12.5% swing against Yvette Cooper in the newly created constituency of Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford.
In 2010 I was also made redundant from the technology SME I worked for, a company who shaped many of my views around small business, technology and innovation. This prompted me to move to London, and for a short while grow a beard.
I’m very interested in how technology can play a role in delivering modern public services, and to this end am a member of the Conservative Technology Forum executive. I authored the CTF’s submission to the recent Public Administration Select Committee’s enquiry into Government IT.
Largely by accident, I’ve established my own photography business, specialising in live music photography. As well as being a handy way of getting into gigs for free, I’ve had my worked published in magazines around the world, from Rolling Stone to the NME, and yes, even Sugar and Hello!
Some bands have been nice enough to use my shots for their artwork and marketing, including U2, Kasabian, Idlewild, The Maccabees and Editors as well as brands including Nokia, Festival Republic, Crisis and Disney.
I’m pretty obsessive about music - i own far too many CDs, play the guitar and have almost mastered how to make my Mac bleep and click in a vaguely musical fashion.