Mary Reid

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

By | 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.

Read more by or more about or .
This entry was posted in Podcasts.
Advert

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • Peter Davies
    "Homes must be what local people can genuinely afford" which is not by any stretch of the imagination what is required by the affordable household threshold....
  • Hywel
    "I would expect Jeff is right to say that higher taxation will act as a disincentive to working legitimately" I was though wondering of the evidence base for...
  • Peter Hirst
    Extending the school day should be primarily for children. For it to be done significantly there would need to be an overhaul of timetables. There would need to...
  • Peter Hirst
    Predicting the future is not easy. What we can do is predict trends. One of them is that many of our challenges as a nation are likely to increase inequality. C...
  • Peter Hirst
    While in favour of some redistribution to create a fairer society, the only long term solution to our challenges is increased economic growth. I favour green gr...