Who is Bill Cameron?

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My 'real' name is William Cameron, although I am almost never called William, instead most people call me Bill and I prefer this. The photograph was taken in June 2007 and is included here to coincide with my birthday earlier in the month.

I live in Nairn, where I moved from Culloden (near Inverness, Scotland) about six years ago. Nairn is about fifteen miles east of Inverness. My apartment overlooks the cricket pitch and has views toward the harbour and the sea, which is only about 50 or so metres away - I enjoy living here a lot. (In the winter I spend three or four months in Spain, near Mazarron in Murcia, as I don't care for the British winter, specially in the period early-January/late-March.)

I happen to have been born in Inverness. I did not grow up there, although I have family connections in the area - which is why I decided to have a home here. I spent much of my working life (in an international bank) in the Middle and Far East, living in a number of countries in these areas and visiting many others both on business and for pleasure. I refer to myself as "an escapee from Room 101" (the room in George Orwell's book "Nineteen Eighty-four" where those under investigation by 'Big Brother' were sent to be confronted by the thing or idea they feared most) because I occupied a room with that number in the Continental Hotel, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam, for about fifteen months, when I lived there; this was during the period when I was looking for a house to live in and decided eventually to finance a new-build in a compound near the city, as a residence for the organisation I worked for. The hotel itself, and indeed the country, were quite pleasant, but living in a country which describes itself as a "Socialist Republic" is not my idea of fun - this is why I use the word "escapee". Incidentally a colleague spent several months living in the room occupied by Graham Greene during the time he wrote the novel 'The Quiet American'; Room 214, if memory serves.

I am 55 years old (as of June '07), retired and of independent means.

This is the view from my home, over the cricket pitch. It was taken in April 2003 when there were frequent rainbows.

• I happen to have [what I consider to be] a moderate 'right-of centre' view on many things, specially on economic matters;
• I have a pretty open attitude as far as social matters are concerned;
• I am not currently a member of any political party. I was until September 2001 a member of the Conservative Party and was a vice-chairman of my local constituency association, as well as being secretary of the Inverness branch of that association; the catalyst for my resignation from the Conservative Party was the election as Leader of Iain Duncan Smith and I resigned within four days of his election. Although his election was the catalyst, I had begun to become disenchanted with the Party's increasingly right-wing and illiberal policies from at least the beginning of the previous year, under the former Leader William Hague. As I was heavily involved in preparations for the general election expected in Spring 2001, however, I chose to remain within the Party at least until that was over and to give the Party my full support, and this is what I did. I do not think it likely that I will ever join any other Party, or at least any of those which exist now; I might rejoin the Conservatives one day, though, if I adjudge them to have decided to join the 21st century in matters of social policy;
• Conservative 'Libertarian' probably sums up my place on the political spectrum.

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