Profile: Alan Craig

Interview: Alan Craig

Christian People's Alliance leader Alan Craig is a social justice campaigner who firmly believes in the place of the family at the heart of society.

Becoming a Christian in his late twenties, he turned his back on a career in business management, moved to one of England's most deprived areas - Canning Town in east London - and started working with young offenders just out of prison.

That work helped reinforce his belief in the role of the family at the heart of society - he says many of the young men he came across came from "broken homes".

He believes marriage is discriminated against in the tax and benefits system and thinks Christianity has suffered from a "secular agenda" in politics.

I want Christ acknowledged in City Hall Alan Craig

He would like to see more faith-based groups being used to help solve social problems - such as street pastors - but says such groups can find their funding cut, because their Christian ethos does not fit funding guidelines.

Recently he called for a poem by Ben Okri, Lines in Potentis, to be removed from the wall at City Hall as it includes a line about the Egyptian god Ra.

"I want Christ acknowledged in City Hall, not a strange god we do not know," said Mr Craig.

The 62-year-old who is married with two daughters and two stepsons, was for several years the sole non-Labour member of Newham Council.

He campaigned hard on issues of redevelopment, such as the re-housing of council tenants to make way for executive housing and against plans for a casino and the Excel arms fair.

He is also well-known locally as a vocal opponent of plans to build a 12,000 capacity mosque on the site of a former chemicals factory in east London.

The Muslim group Tablighi Jamaat says it will also host a school, conference centre and landscaped garden that will benefit the local community - Mr Craig is among those who refer to it as a "mega mosque".

He says the "secretive" group preaches separatism and says such a large mosque would upset the multicultural mix in that part of east London.

He says he has the support of several leading Muslims in his fight - but at least one critic posted an "obituary" video of him and his family on the video-sharing website YouTube. Someone was questioned by police but no charges were brought.

Mr Craig is running for mayor under the "Christian Choice" banner - an electoral alliance between the CPA and the Christian Party.