Good to meet you … Peter Emerson

My first career was in HM submarines, where I rose (or sank) to the rank of first lieutenant. However, having seen so much poverty in the world, I resigned to campaign for a reduction in western consumerism. In 1970, I started as a volunteer teacher in a school for the poor in Nairobi, and there I took the Guardian Weekly. Apart from keeping in touch, it was essential for a second reason: in a land of what were (for me) unusual foods, I required soft paper. I was usually able to read everything first but, if not, the arts section had to be sacrificed. In 1975 I moved to Northern Ireland to work in a youth club, just off the Shankill Road in Belfast, and I graduated to the daily edition."That's a fenian rag!" they said. In the minds of some, anything that wasn't Protestant was, ergo, fenian. Only more recently have I been able to get the Guardian from my local newsagent. In all, I've been a Guardian addict for over 40 years. I particularly like the coverage of international news but the one omission is any serious debate on alternative methods of decision-making; like so many in the media, you debate electoral systems but not decision-making. In 1986, I helped organise the New Ireland Group's "People's Convention", an experiment in consensus politics. It was still eight years before the ceasefire, yet we managed to get Sinn Féin and Unionists together, and even the political wing of the UDA. No majority dichotomies; instead we used preference voting, and sure enough, a common ground was identified. This consensus voting is now the main thrust of my work in the de Borda Institute.