As Thursday’s elections loom the threat of Reform looms large across the country in places the Labour party has abandoned. However another story has emerged in the race for the Parish Council election in Barnack ward near Peterborough. James Simpson reports 

Andrew Coles, formerly Andy ‘Van’ Davey, once Metropolitan Special Branch officer of the much-maligned Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), has been selected to run as their Conservative candidate.  

Coles appearance at the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) (reported in Andrew Coles: Tinker, Tory, Policeman, Spy) in the week before Christmas 2024, should have been a final nail in the coffin for the career of a man that symbolises so much that is wrong with the British political class of the day. In equal measures mediocre and creepy, Coles was deployed undercover in the early 1990s.  

A brief stint in the anti-war movement campaigning against British involvement in The Gulf War was followed by years deployed in the lives and homes of animal rights and hunt saboteur activists in South London. Contemporaneously known as a ‘letch’ and ‘creep’ by his peers in the movement, Coles has been accused of making unwanted and unwarranted advances towards multiple women whilst undercover. A fact that has been acknowledged and apologised for by his former employer, the Metropolitan Police Service. Improprieties, that even with the avalanche of eyewitness testimony revealed at the UCPI, he still denies. 

Exposed 

The ‘Sack Andy Coles’ campaign was founded by a woman he deceived into a long-term sexual relationship, known to the UCPI as ‘Jessica’. When Jessica met Coles in the early 1990s, she was a 19-year-old that had just moved to London and was making her way in life and an activist with a burning passion for the welfare of animals. Coles was a 32-year-old police officer living in an assumed identity and writing regular reports to Special Branch, often including sexualised references to the appearances of women in the movement.  

When he was unveiled by his brother (ex-pop star turned Church of England celebrity minister) the Reverend Richard Coles’ inadvertently revealing description of his sibling in his autobiography, he was an elected Tory city councillor and deputy police and crime commissioner. By May 2024, he had lost both of these jobs, with electoral defeat to an 18-year-old woman, Daisy Blakemore-Creedon, in city council elections. Some measure of poetic justice seemed to have been served, and the Sack Andy Coles campaign seemed to have reached a successful conclusion. 

In April 2025 it was announced that the Conservative candidate for Barnack Parish Council at the May election would be the former SDS officer – back from the political dead. Jessica re-ignited the Sack Andy Coles campaign and put the printing presses into action. Joined by concerned residents, and a couple of Bristol Counterfire activists, Jessica has lead marathon leafletting sessions. These have seen almost all of the 1500 residents in the 6 villages that make up the ward receive information directly detailing Coles’ floundering and lies told under oath at the UCPI.  

Manual of deceit 

Sections of the SDS Tradecraft Manual that Coles authored reveal details of the systematic deception of women into sexual relationships for the purpose of gathering intelligence on activists practicing their democratic right to protest. That shows Coles’ use of habitually derogatory and sexualised language in his intelligence reporting, especially concerning women. Above all this highlights that a man, so utterly and completely exposed in his deceits and misogyny, should not be in a position of power or public office. That he can be in a position to be again says a lot. In a deeply conservative area of the country the response to the leaflet was generally supportive of the Sack Andy Coles campaign and bodes well for the election.  

Inspirational 

The courage of Jessica in standing up to her abuser, once again, is inspiring to see first-hand. As the results roll in and the discussion inevitably centres around the rise of Reform, keep an eye out for the count in Barnack ward, where a small, yet vital victory, may yet provide a significant silver lining.