Neville Darrell's Senate seat comes just a few weeks after joining the United Bermuda Party.

But he says that his views have always been ideologically consistent with the UBP.

Mr. Darrell was one of a dozen people who put their names forward to be the UBP's candidate for the recently concluded Pembroke West by-election.

"I think this is a critical time for the life of my community," he said when asked why he decided to enter politics. "I'm a son of the soil - I love my country, I deeply care about my country. And I think it's one thing to stand back and be critical. It's quite another thing to roll up your sleeves and try and help." The move into politics, he says, is a "natural progression" from implementing policy to being in a position to help make policy. "There is a sense in which the community is beginning to feel more fragmented for whatever reasons. Whether people are feeling displaced, not having an adequate voice in what is going on. Our country truly is at this time, I believe in a period of change and transition. Clearly the status quo has been broken, whatever that was, and clearly the challenges that are presently upon us as a community is to reconstruct the social paradigms in a way that's inclusive so that all our groups feel included in the national dream."

Married and with two adult sons from a previous marriage, Mr. Darrell has spent his entire professional life in public service - prior to entering the civil service, he served as a pastor with the Salvation Army church in Somerset and then as the director of counselling at a men's rehabilitation centre in Manitoba, Canada where he gained a degree in Sociology and Political Science from the University of Manitoba. His earlier education was at Northlands and Berkeley Institute and he was trained as a Salvation Army Officer at the William Booth Memorial College in Toronto. While in Canada, he also worked as a child protection worker for the Children's Aid Society of Greater Toronto. He later joined the Ontario Government to set up Greater Toronto's first young offender residential programme. Mr. Darrell then served as a human rights officer with the Ontario Premier's Human Rights Task Force.

Upon his return to Bermuda he was appointed executive officer of the Human Rights Commission.