JOHN Cooper spent decades writing headlines in the media world.
But after swapping journalism for politics, Dumfries and Galloway’s new MP is now fully focused on producing a positive story for the region he loves.
He’s barely four weeks into the job and the summer parliamentary recess began this week, but the Conservatives MP has been busy getting things moving in Westminster and preparing to take over predecessor Alister Jack’s office in Dumfries.
“It’s been pretty much non-stop since the election, but that’s how I expected it to be,” said Mr Cooper.
“It’s an honour to be given this important role and I’m here to represent the people of Dumfries and Galloway, so late nights and things happening unexpectedly – just like when I worked in newspapers – come with the job.”
It is almost exactly a year since the father-of-three was nominated to stand for election in the region where he grew up.
Stranraer is John’s home town and he attended Rephad Primary before moving onto Stranraer Academy.
The 57-year-old said: “I left school on the Friday aged 17 – and started work as a trainee reporter at the Wigtownshire Free Press. That’s just the way things worked back then.”
And it worked out well because it was in the newspaper industry that John met his wife Patricia. The pair went onto greater heights working for the Daily Mail in Scotland, England, and Ireland.
They also had three kids – Saskia, Finlay, and Ethan – who have now flown the nest.
Journalism involves a lot of conversations, and there were plenty more in store for John as he hit the campaign trail hard over the last year.
He said: “I was working as special advisor for Alister Jack at the time that I was nominated to stand for election.
“The rules meant that I could only campaign at weekends and in my own free time of course, so I just decided to get out and about to meet as many people as possible.
“I travelled right across the region month after month, trying to knock on as many doors as possible to chat with people face to face.
“Because we all read about opinion polls, but I wanted to hear from the people I wanted to represent on exactly what they felt and what issues were most important to them.”
The politician admitted that a fair chunk of people said they were not interested in politics and seemed “disenfranchised” by it all.
He clearly had Tory colleague Boris and his partygate cronies to thank for that, although the fraud scandal involving the SNP at Holyrood probably didn’t help matters with voters either.
“It was disappointing to hear people say, ‘politics is not for me’,” said John. “Because it affects all of us. I realise there are trust issues, but it was also important to hear what people’s priorities were too.
“I personally don’t think Scottish independence will happen, not in the short term or long term, and it was clear that people see this as a distraction from real world issues.
“Their biggest concerns were jobs, the economy, opportunities for their children, and the health service.
“Of course health is in the hands of the Scottish Government, but it would be remiss of me as the region’s MP to simply say ‘it’s devolved’ and walk away.
“And £41 billion was given to the Scottish Government from the treasury, but not nearly enough of it is allocated to Dumfries and Galloway.
“Why are we not seeing more of it?”
With a four year term likely ahead, John has plenty of time to get the answers he’s looking for.
