James CochraneCandidate for Middle · September 2026

The short version.

Show the working · Track the promises · Say when I’m wrong

What I stand for and what I’d do about it — headlines only. Every line links to the detail. These are working proposals: pull them apart and tell me where I’m wrong.

I stand for evidence-based decision making — data, analysis and follow-through, not another round of reviews.

Economy Steadying the ship, then open water

 6 points — click to expandClick to collapse
  • Tackle the cost of living where Government can genuinely move it.
  • Grow and diversify the private sector — it’s our sustainable income for health, care and education.
  • Manage the deficit steadily. No panic, no excuses.
  • Air, sea and digital connections that keep us in business.
  • Constructive with the UK and Europe.
  • You can’t manage what you don’t measure.

Energy Lights on, options open

 4 points — click to expandClick to collapse
  • Net Zero yes. The 2030 electricity deadline no.
  • Spend now on what we’re guaranteed to need — an interconnector. Everything else: options open. The working →
  • Power and fibre together — energy security, and a tech industry to build on.
  • Plan in public — before commercial firms are at the table.

Health Keeping the crew fit

 8 points — click to expandClick to collapse
  • Ten reviews in seven years, barely any progress reported. Fair funding, leadership pointing one way, and the Manx Care handover finished.
  • Ring-fence surgery beds, so emergencies don’t cancel operations.
  • Discharge seven days a week — patients move the day they’re fit.
  • Let GPs be GPs — and connect GP and hospital data now.
  • Specialists networked: digital, visiting, travel only when truly needed.
  • Prevention first — including earlier cancer screening.
  • More care in local communities. Care arranged first, funding sorted after.
  • Fund the Hospice properly.
  • Manx Care at arm’s length, its leadership pulling one way.
  • Growing older well — a conversation the Island needs to start.

Housing Building the community of the future

 5 points — click to expandClick to collapse
  • More first-time buyer homes.
  • Single-person homes that make downsizing attractive.
  • Switch on the landlords list — the law has waited since 2021.
  • Braddan Woods: one in four homes “affordable”, and the infrastructure not yet real. Right-size it, and track every promise in public.
  • 5,700 homes counted vacant. Publish the breakdown.

Education The skills of tomorrow

 5 points — click to expandClick to collapse
  • Fix today’s skills shortages. Fund the skills of tomorrow.
  • Apprenticeships tied to the homes we build.
  • Grow our own clinicians and carers — a Manx route into clinical and care careers.
  • Retrain the older generation into care: mental health, rehabilitation, advocacy.
  • Mandatory PSHE that counts: relationship skills, and understanding different ways of thinking.

Work & migration Measured, then managed

 2 points — click to expandClick to collapse
  • Measure unemployment, underemployment and migration properly — then manage them.
  • ID and advance passenger checks now, made a legal requirement — don’t wait for the broader package.
  • Close the looser ways in; fund follow-up checks after landing; deport foreign criminals where the law allows.

Government Running a tighter ship

 4 points — click to expandClick to collapse
  • Do less, better.
  • Public–private projects with entrepreneurial edge.
  • Bring back the headcount cap.
  • Be honest about the shortfall — borrowing included.

Changing the system How decisions get made

 2 points — click to expandClick to collapse
  • Policies tested, coherent, consistent — not horse-traded away before Cabinet.
  • Speak and vote with conscience, not with a bloc.

Local issues Closer to home

 2 points — click to expandClick to collapse
  • Communities built around health, mental health and the right housing.
  • A real route out of social dependence.
Hold me to

The things you can hold me to

Five personal commitments — not up for negotiation
  • A surgery every week — Santon, Braddan, Ballafletcher and Marown, in turn.
  • A non-judgemental ear, on your side.
  • Advocacy and challenge, backed by data and delivery experience.
  • Supportive, not antagonistic. Present, not absent.
  • Working shown, promises tracked, votes explained — and saying when I’m wrong.
Print the A4 version → Tell me what’s broken → Book 15 minutes with me →

Tell me what matters to you — a message or a chat, whatever’s easiest for you: james@cochrane.im. I hope we get the chance to talk properly.