Tom Conti
Tom's public personna is that of an award winning actor with a career in stage, film and television spanning 40 years. He has also turned his hand to writing and directing.
Tom is a long-time north London resident and in his spare time he campaigns on local authority issues. He became involved simply because he saw the treatment of motorists as an injustice.
An unpleasant encounter with some baillifs promped him to get involved in the foundation of the London Motorists Action Group.
He says: "I just hate unfairness in government and there's a vast amount being perpetrated against anybody with a vehicle - and that's an awful lot of people. Sometimes I ask myself, 'Why am I doing this? Where are the politicians?'"
"The local authorities are supposed to be there to help the people rather than harass them, but at the moment people are being harassed. I started complaining and somehow the papers got hold of it and here we are."
Despite this, Tom says he "hates" politics and does not consider himself a political person. He says: "Politics and the whole right-wing, left-wing thing is nonsense. There's only common sense really and an understanding of what human beings are - and human beings do not want to be dictated to."
In his opionion, if people like himself feel the need to mount their own campaigns to get their voices heard on issues they consider important, that indicates a failure of national and local politics.
Tom's involvement in various motoring campaigns has attracted publicity and helped raise their profile locally and nationally. He says: "The papers want to sell papers and it's easier to sell papers with a few famous names scattered through them than not."
Tom's links: Wikipedia IMDB