Doncaster elections 2025: David Bettney says race for mayor is between “me, Tories and Labour” in interview

The LDRS has offered one-to-one interviews with every single candidate for Doncaster mayor – offering them the opportunity to sell themselves and their parties to voters and getting them to answer important questions.

David Bettney said he took the fight to Labour and Conservatives during the election for South Yorkshire Mayor in 2024, where he came third in Doncaster.

He told the LDRS: “I think the people in politics are the wrong people in general… It’s red team vs blue team. The Tories do it because they hate Labour and Labour do it because they hate the Tories.”

He said mainstream politicians are more concerned about beating each other than doing right by the residents of Doncaster.

“You can tell when you’re mixing with these people that they are so obsessed with the other parties,” he explained.

Bettney explained he felt politically homeless a few years ago, after leaving UKIP, before finding the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

He said the party was more left-leaning on policies like nationalising the steel industry and right-leaning on issues like immigration.

He added: “The SDP seems quite right-wing now because the Tories are now liberal and Labour are radical liberal, in my opinion.

“I came third last year in Doncaster for South Yorkshire Mayor and that was with no campaigning, door-knocking, or leaflets.”

He said people who want change in the city should vote for him, due to him coming third in Doncaster in 2024.

“It’s only between me, the Tories and Labour at the moment,” he said, “Reform are shouting a lot from the sidelines.”

Bettney said he would campaign to bring international companies to Doncaster, making it a global business destination, and would work to bring nuclear power to the region to lower bills.

He told the LDRS: “What I want to do is look at Doncaster as a football team. We’re not doing too well if we’re in a league table. We have to bring international companies here.

“To bring interest is a really tricky task. One thing I would be doing is pushing for nuclear power as it’s the cheapest.”

He said Britain needs to be self-sufficient and reduce the need to import it, suggesting Doncaster could be the start point.

The 55-year-old explained: “We need a grown up conversation about energy and I will fight for that.

“I love the world and nature but we need to co-exist with it.

“There’s more people getting killed in a week due to knife crime in London than died in Chernobyl.”

In his campaign announcement, Bettney said he wanted to make savings in the council to clear its debts.

With social care taking up a huge amount of council spending, the LDRS asked him how he intends to do that, whilst keeping his promise to support the most vulnerable people.

“We are a bureaucratic society where money is syphoned off,” he said, taking aim at the council’s top earners.

Bettney said: “When you’re spending somebody else’s money it’s a different experience because it’s not coming out of their pockets. If it was coming out of their wages, they wouldn’t make some of the decisions they do.

“If you get nearly £200,000-a-year from the council, I want to see a serious bit of work.”

He said he’d need to see the council’s finances first before making commitments, but said if the current mayor had been running as lean a council as possible and he couldn’t save any money after four years as mayor, he would give them their credit.

The LDRS asked Bettney to give an example of when his free speech had been restricted, after he had previously said he was concerned about the “lack of free speech” in modern times.

He said: “You see it all the time on Facebook… People used to openly say something, it could be pro-gay, anti-gay. But now you will be locked up for hate speech and anything can be hate speech in law.”

He told the LDRS there should be “no limits” on free speech, unless someone was continuously harassing someone online.