This is me ....

Politicians must have the courage to tell people the truth. This has been my firm conviction ever since my earliest encounters with the political world. Even as a child I was really into politics, reading every newspaper I could get my hands on. To this day I remain an avid reader of the papers:  sometimes getting through five of them a day. My wife Dunja is well aware of my passion: “At least the blue paper bin has something to look forward to!” she once commented. But it wasn’t just reading the papers that aroused my interest in politics so early on. I spent the first eleven years of my life in Berlin, where I lived with my father James (a British civil servant), my mother Mechthild (a music teacher) and my two sisters Elisabeth and Sylvia. Berlin was surrounded by communism – that is how I experienced it as a child.

In 1982, my parents moved from Berlin to Bad Bederkesa, a beautiful small town near Cuxhaven. This is the place that, for me and my family, really feels like our true home.
From 1991 to 1994 I was District Chairman of the “Junge Union”, the German Christian Democrats’ (CDU) youth organization, and from 2001 to 2002 I was Mayor of Bad Bederkesa. For me, local politics is something I care deeply about and also forms the basis for my work at state level in Hanover. Anyone who reflects on the political goals of a state, or who wants to help pave the way for both a future- and family-oriented Lower Saxony, needs to know the concerns of the locals and how they think. Because that’s what it’s all about – the people themselves.
A Lower Saxony that doesn’t leave our children facing a mountain of debts, but is capable of acting decisively and is in good shape for the future in all areas from education and finance to infrastructure – that is my goal, and what I am actively committed to on a daily basis as Prime Minister of Lower Saxony.