Reg Keys was an ambulance paramedic for 19 years in Solihull before retiring to Llanuwchllyn , Bala in North Wales . In the 2005 UK general election , he stood against the then Prime Minister , Tony Blair , in the Sedgefield constituency . Keys declared at the outset of the campaign that he had been a Labour Party voter and was still basically socialist , but that he was seeking election as a candidate opposed to Blair 's policy on the Iraq War . He claimed that by electing him , voters could keep the Labour Party in power but with Gordon Brown as the likely Prime Minister rather than Blair . Former Independent MP Martin Bell urged the other parties to withdraw their candidates as removing a supporter of the war from office would send a message to President Bush and other World Leaders who had supported him . During the campaign , UK newspaper '' The Guardian '' 's Stuart Jeffries asked Keys , " Is it difficult to be a political candidate in these circumstances , when you are still clearly grieving ? " , to which he replied " Yes it is . … I feel , though , that I have a responsibility to Tom . I keep going back to the words of a widow of a man who died on the '' Kursk '' … . She said : ' If you betray your country you are a traitor and you will go to prison . But if your country betrays you , what can you do ? ' I think I have an answer to that : we can use our vote to get rid of those people who betrayed my son and other men like him . That 's what I want the people of Sedgefield to do . " Bob Clay , the left-wing former Labour MP for Sunderland North , acted as Keys ' agent . Keys won 4,252 votes ( 10.3 % of the total ) , coming in fourth place , less than 700 votes behind the Liberal Democrats candidate and about 1,700 votes behind the Conservative candidate . Blair won with 24,421 votes ( 58.9 % )
Kursk
Kursk submarine disaster
Reg Keys