Listen to Wendy Chamberlain on being Chief Whip, and less exciting topics

By Mary Reid | Wed 17th January 2024 - 1:07 pm

Our Chief Whip, Wendy Chamberlain, has been talking with Iain Dale.

Wendy talks about her role as Chief Whip and how she tried to keep the Parliamentary team in line, especially during Covid. Iain Dale also asked her about her childhood in Greenock and her career in the police – and her love of shinty.

She then discusses her entry into politics, with the added complication that her husband is a member of the SNP. Fortunately, their differences on Scottish Independence don’t seem to have undermined their marriage.

Wendy became an MP within four years of joining the Liberal Democrats. They chat about her predecessor in North East Fife, Stephen Gethins, for whom both have a lot of respect.

I do genuinely believe that it is an enormous privilege to be elected as an MP to represent somewhere. The day you forget that is the day you potentially start to lose your reason for being there.

Iain Dale asked her about the challenges of “juggling so many balls” – the constituency, the Commons and specific party roles. She said:

There’s no doubt that being the Whip means that I am predominantly in Westminster from Monday to Thursday as well as being a Scottish MP – which means that once I’m here I’m here so it’s not like you can just pop up the road. So, yes, it does potentially limit your time and I try to keep Sunday as a family day, but the reality is that media requests, looking at what we are doing the next day and all those kind of things …

Worth a listen.

* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.

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