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About Martin

Martin Tod lives in Winchester, with his wife, Michaela.

He works as Chief Executive of the Men’s Health Forum, the centre of excellence for men’s health policy and practice.

In May 2012, he was elected as one of the three City Councillors for St Paul ward on Winchester City Council. He was re-elected to the position again in May 2016 and May 2019. In May 2013, he was elected as the Hampshire County Councillor for Winchester Westgate.

Previously he was the 2010 Parliamentary Candidate for the Liberal Democrats in Winchester. He was also Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Policy Working Group on Housing and one of the organisers of Lib Dems against the NHS Bill.

Before joining the Men’s Health Forum, he worked for Shelter in a range of roles, including Head of Corporate Fundraising, Head of Strategy Development and Deputy Director of Communications, Policy and Campaigns. Previously he was UK Head of Brand & Advertising for Vodafone and a Marketing Director for Procter and Gamble.

Working hard for local people

You can see Martin’s speeches on local issues on the County Council here.

Over the years, Martin has been an active local campaigner on a wide range of issues.  These include:

Active volunteer

Martin is an active volunteer in Winchester – mainly with homelessness charities and environmental groups.

He has also helped in schools across the constituency with citizenship classes.

Martin helps as a steward and litter-picker at the Hat Fair and is also involved in charitable fund-raising with Alresford Rotary Club.

His team at the Big Sleep Out in 2008 raised more than £3,800 for local charity.

Hobbies & interests:

Cycling, cinema, photography, internet, going for walks with Michaela in and around Winchester

Martin is also a member of Winchester Action on Climate Change, Winchester Friends of the Earth, the Campaign for Real Ale, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, the National Trust, the Electoral Reform Society, the Howard League for Penal Reform, the European Movement, Amnesty International, the Open Rights Group, and No2ID.

And finally…

Martin’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas Garnier, was Dean of Winchester and features in Winchester Museum as an “anti-muckabite” campaigner to bring a sewerage system to Winchester in the 1860s. The Dean Garnier garden in the Cathedral close is named after him, as is Garnier Road, leading past the old pumping station.

Martin is currently the Chairman of the Friends of the Dean Garnier Garden. You can find out more about the garden and how you can help on the Garden’s Facebook page!

If you want to know more about Martin Tod, why not ask him a question? All questions asked online will be answered online unless you would like the answer to be confidential.

41 replies on “About Martin”

Hi Martin!

I’ve read the web site with interest. Please, where you say “and voting in favour of committing the party to joining the Iraq war demonstration in Feb. 2003” does that mean you were pro- or anti- the UK’s involvement in the Iraq operation, and have you since changed your mind?

Thank you.

Oliver Woodman

Hello Martin, came across your page after doing research on the Micheldever Station Market Town. You have strong views oposing the development of an eco town, and i just wondered if you feel the same about the Borden development? Thanks 🙂

As far as I can tell the Bordon development is quite different:

  • It’s quite a lot smaller (5-8,000 homes vs. 12,500 for Micheldever)
  • It’s backed by the local councils – all the local councils for Micheldever Station Eco-Town were opposed
  • It’s on brownfield land (an old military site) rather than open fields

In these respects at least, the Bordon proposal looks better than Micheldever Station Eco-Town.

One area I would be interested to understand better is the transport impact of Bordon. I had a very big problem with the traffic growth from the Micheldever Station eco-town proposal. Several commentators have pointed out that traffic is the biggest conceptual problem with eco-towns in general. I don’t know what the traffic situation is with Bordon. Before reaching a final conclusion, I’d like to understand this area better.

Hi Martin,

I love how you are running 4 parliament i told my teacher and now we even have a sign hanging up in the class room. Vote Martin Tod 4 president!!!!

Hi Naomi. Thank you for your support. I'm only running to be a Member of Parliament though. (It's like being the House of Representatives). We don't have a President in England. We have a Queen instead!

Do you support the idea of a European Public Prosecutor's Office? How would it work with our Common Law tradition? Is it not yet another example of Eurocreep?

The Liberal Democrats are not signed up to the introduction of a European Public Prosecutor until quite a few issues are sorted out – as witness this set of comments by Andrew Duff MEP, Leader of our group in the European Parliament.

This article by Hugo Brady for the Centre of European Reform makes a good case that we should proceed very cautiously before introducing the role.

I share this view. I will take a lot of persuading that we need a European Public Prosecutor, with the dramatic legal and constitutional implications that follow, even if the role is restricted only to tackling EU budget fraud – as has currently been suggested.

At the last General Election the LibDems proposed getting rid of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA),believing there were better ways of spending the then £650 million pa cost.Do you still hold to this view,especially given the UK's dire overspending and consequential debt.?

There was no reference to scrapping EMA in our last manifesto.

We have however expressed repeated opposition to the £100 million spent on EMA bonuses and would redirect that money to close the funding gap between 6th forms and colleges.

Our latest policy statement says:

The Education Maintenance Allowance is having some impact on the staying on rates in the
lowest income households, but we are not convinced of the effectiveness of the EMA bonuses for
attendance and work completion and we would abolish such bonuses. We would re-direct the
saving of £100m per year into the colleges sector to deliver fair funding.

Your LIbDem colleague,Chris Huhne,has criticised Lord Ashcroft's contributions to the Conservatives.I have written to Chris asking which non-doms have contributed to the LibDems during this Parliament and how much they have given in total.I have received no reply.I also asked him why the LibDems have retained the £2.4 million donated by the convicted fraudster Michael Brown despite its source from his illegal actions.He has not replied to this question either.Are you prepared to answer these questions?

I don't have that information so can't really comment. I'm sure if there were any obvious non-doms on the published lists of donations, the other parties would have pointed it out by now. Feel free to take a look yourself.

The Electoral Commission has ruled on the Michael Brown case as follows:

Having considered all the evidence in this case, we have concluded that 5th Avenue Partners Limited met the requirements to be a permissible donor. The Electoral Commission will be taking no further action in this case.

As a motorcyclist, aside from attention to pot holes (more attention is needed, particularly in the itchen valley area!), what are you doing to protect my interests?

Hi Martin,

I just wanted to wish you all the best in the forthcoming elections. It was a privledge to work with you in Prague and valued your support in getting the initiative program sorted out!

There are currently 6 Sinn Fein MPs being paid a salary and expenses by HM, but none of them have taken the requisite Oath of Allegiance to our Queen, so are unable to participate in Parliament. What are you, or the Lib Dems going to do to address this horrendous misuse of OUR taxes?

I'm pretty certain the costs of the Sinn Fein MPs will be more than covered by the taxpayers of the constituencies they represent. If they choose to elect MPs who don't sit in Parliament, that is a matter for them. I would not want to refuse the people of those constituencies the right to vote for the candidates they wish.

Hello Martin,

Its Felicity Stonehill here the youth MP for the Winchester and Eastliegh region, I hope you still have my card from lunch the other week.
Anyway what a rollercoaster it has been for the Libdems and Im so happy to see such positive feedback, I hope if you are elected that we can keep in contact as I need support in my regional campaign, get back to me soon

Felicity

Hi Martin
I would like to know your views on the Barton Farm development. Will you be opposing these plans?
Regards
Helen

I strongly oppose the current plans. In terms of the specifics, there are all kinds of traffic problems associated with the plan, and the response of the Highways Agency to the proposal suggests these may be insurmountable. On a wider scale, I oppose the top-down planning targets that are driving the current decision to build on Barton Farm – and our manifesto would see them scrapped. I also don't support building on green fields while there is underused brownfield – and especially – car-parking space – in the city itself.

Martin, I notice that you have not signed the Westminister Declaration of Christian Conscience, is this simply that you are unaware of its presence or do you disagree with the declaration itself? Regards, Clive Keyte, Winchester

Clive,

Several people have written to me about Conscience Manifesto and much of what is written in the wider manifesto I have no problem with or find admirable. For example, I share the concern about assisted suicide and euthanasia. However, candidates are not being asked to sign up to the wider manifesto – we're asked to sign up to a shorter and broader statement that I have more of a problem with.

I do of course, I support the right of Christians to hold and express Christian beliefs – and – within legal limits – to act according to Christian conscience.

The question that comes (as it always does) is where those rights conflict with the rights of others – or with the law – and how those conflicting rights are reconciled. At this point, I don't support elevating religious rights above all other rights.

Specifically, allowing people to 'act according to Christian conscience' without recognising that this may sometimes conflict with other rights is too much of a blank cheque. Am I allowed to add 'within the law' to that? Or are there laws (or human rights) that it is intended to exclude? Does this include racial discrimination? Or gender discrimination? Or discrimination based on sexuality? Or restrictions on the use of violence for example?

For example, there were those within the Christian Church who supported slavery – although of course, it was also Christians who led the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade. Would I have been required to protect the slave-owners right to act according to their conscience?

There are those (not Christian). who believe – for religious reasons – in the death sentence for blasphemy – and we've seen examples of where that belief has posed a severe threat to another competing right (free expression) within the UK.

In short, I certainly do not want to exclude religion from public life. Freedom to practice religion is an essential human right. But I believe religious rights should not be elevated above all our other rights. We need to continue to balance those rights and this makes it hard for me to sign up without adding some extra conditions or clarification to the manifesto.

Martin,

I wish you all the best tomorrow. I thoroughly enjoyed working with you on the CEEMEA Beauty business a decade ago and am so pleased that your obvious passion for political change then has translated into something that will benefit the Winchester constituency in the future.

hI Martin,
can you explain why the Party Manifestos are so expensive….? The Lib-dem one costs £5! how can poorer folk afford them??…….!

This page mentions your achievements in Winchester only…. Have you achieved anything in Chandlers Ford? Why is your focus so squarely on Winchester? Are you the candidate for Winchester and Chandlers Ford or just Winchester?

There is so much that needs improvement in Chandlers Ford – we need someone on our side too! Please stop your focus on Winchester (just because you live there) and start looking at Chandlers Ford.

I realise there's a longer list for Winchester than Chandler's Ford – although some of the campaigns – such as the campaign for more ambulances – benefit Chandler's Ford as well. I'm just as committed to making sure people in Chandler's Ford have a strong representative as well the people in Winchester. I intend to hold at least one surgery a month in Chandler's Ford and to turn up to as many events as I can.

In terms of previous activity, aside from reporting endless potholes, I actively campaigned to save the bus services through to Hiltingbury and Chandler's Ford back in 2008, and campaigned hard to save the Post Office in Bournemouth Road (although not successfully unfortunately) and to try and stop the phone mast in Leigh Road (also not successful).

In addition to my campaigning activity, I've also helped out with Hocombe Mead as a conservation volunteer and with the launch of Transition Chandler's Ford.

For some reason, I came across your website from a WordPress plug-in for creating Twitter feeds. The plug-in works great, thank you if you are the person behind it! From the other side of “the pond” as an American who believes in Libertarian, constitutional values, I am saddened that such a smart man as yourself believes that government is the answer to so many societal problems you list here. More taxation and more government intervention is a means to amass more political power and influence with diminishing returns from the public’s investment. It’s the nature of government to waste as it is a microcosm of a collective where no one’s accountable and it’s easy to spend as long as the money is someone else’s — which is always the case with government.

From my perspective here in America, socialistic “values” are not values based on compassion, but misguided good intentions based on the fact that government can do better for the individual than the individual. Have you not seen the damage done to society when countries create a cradle-to-grave nanny state with unsustainable, unfunded liabilities?

Be honest with yourself, have you ever even considered that less government and less taxation will do more to advance those in need than burdening them? Ask 50 people in your community, do they trust government to be responsible and thrifty? Ask them if they believe politicians have the peoples’ best interests in mind. There are many reasons people don’t and should not.

Anyway, just another perspective, I’m sure the green movement hoaxers who embrace communism/socialism and truly believe in the junk science it is based on will all laugh at this post. Believe me when I say, the more informed people become, the more they learn the truth and the less they trust politicians and government. A reputation politicians and those in government rightfully deserve.

Hi Aaron,

Many thanks for visiting my site and I’m glad you like my plug-in.

I’m not a socialist by any means, but would describe myself as a ‘social liberal‘ which recognises that Government can have a vital role in increasing people’s freedom and opportunity in life. Good quality education for all (something the US is falling behind on), for example, means that all citizens have good and equal start to life – and doesn’t mean that people who, by pure bad luck, have parents who can’t afford or choose not to give their children a good education have a life-long unfair disadvantage. Regulation can control the ability of banks to rip us off or stop badly managed companies poisoning and endangering us and our environment etc etc. As an example, I don’t have a problem with there being strict government rules about what drug companies can say about their products (i.e. they need to prove that they work and are safe before they sell them). I also support a health system that isn’t as disastrous as the US one has been historically in terms of life-expectancy, infant mortality etc. etc. where you are outperformed by a large number of poorer countries.

That said, I think you’re right not to give government free rein. I believe electoral competition can be at least as valuable as market competition in giving people choice and opportunity. I’m also more cynical than you are about how free markets can behave without clear rules to bound them: you say that people distrust big government (which is true), but they also distrust big business (which in many cases is also completely justified – and something libertarians are often too quiet on and provide too few answers to). It’s also vital that we have voting systems which make it easy to kick out incumbents who aren’t doing a good enough job (something else the US is weak at – and something that, historically, communist and socialist states were disastrous at) and hold our politicians to account.

Martin

I’ve read your web site with great interest. It just makes me feel even more assured that you Martin should be our MP . The current incumbent has gone awol and is not looking after his flock of ‘ Good People of Winchester & Chandlers Ford.
If you want to see an excellent blue print for the Liberal Democrat’s visit Eastleigh town centre. It was magic during the summer with a massive sand pit for kids to play. Even after the fair on the green everything was clean cut and looking great. I would like see Winchester looking the same. Some hope !!

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