Nine new Lib Dem peers have just been announced …
Working Peers List
-
* Floella Benjamin OBE DL – actor, presenter and campaigner for children’s issues
* Mike German OBE AM – former Deputy First Minister (Wales)
* Meral Hussein Ece OBE – Local Government Councillor in Islington, advocate of equality issues
* Sir Kenneth (Ken) Macdonald QC – former Director of Public Prosecutions
* Kathryn (Kate) Jane Parminter – former Chief Executive of Campaign to Protect Rural England
* John Shipley OBE – leading Local Government Councillor in Newcastle upon Tyne
The sharp-eyed will spot an equal number of men and women on the list, as well as two BME representatives: Meral, heavily involved in the Turkish community; and Floella, born in Trinidad.
Dissolution List:
-
* Richard Allan – former MP for Sheffield Hallam and Chair of the Information Select Committee
* Matthew Owen John Taylor – former MP for Truro and St Austell, Chair of National Housing Federation
* George Philip (Phil) Willis – former MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, Former Chair of Science and Technology Select Committee
16 new Conservative peers were announced, and 29 new Labour peers. In addition, Iain Paisley was appointed a peer, and former Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair will sit as a crossbencher.
By my reckoning this produces a House of Lords comprised as follows:
-
Labour – 240 peers (32%)
Conservative – 204 peers (27%)
Liberal Democrats – 81 peers (11%)
UKIP – 2 peers (0%)
DUP – 1 peer (0%)
Crossbenchers – 183 peers (24%)
Lords Spiritual – 25 peers (3%)
Other – 24 peers (3%)
Total – 760 peers
The coalition government of Lib Dems and Conservatives therefore has 38% of the vote in the Lords.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Northern Ireland debates the future of its railways in 1957
Church Green video
Thinking of standing for election or re-election next year? Helpful questions to consider
Endometriosis and acetylation
Jeff
Nonconformistradical
John Peters
David Raw
Henry
17 Comments
Not a single one off the interim peers list at https://www.libdemvoice.org/arise-lord-paddick-95-new-lib-dem-peers-set-to-be-created-19568.html !
Why bother with internal pary democracy. Not a single person off the interim peers list. Why bother with the election? Grantyed we have just been through a GE and the Leader needs to have a free hand but 0/6 is a terrible result.
2 or 3 out of 6 should have come from the list and that would still leave room for Nick’s office to juggle….
What!
No Paul Keetch? Outrageous!
And still no West Midlanders! Double Outrageous!
Very glad to see Meral Ece on there. Hard worker and great person.
I am agreeing with the comments on the interim peers list though. How exactly did the party chose our lot this time?
Ah I *sort* of take it back…th 2006 list is still valid meaning that Kate and Meral Qualify on that basis….still only 1/3 of the appointments though…. and still no-one of the newer list. Bit sad that only 2 out of 58 were deemed suitable…
Now found this note:
Election is every two years, last one was 08.
Results are here:
http://www.compulink.co.uk/~rosenstiel/ldelections/08peers.htm
Once you’re on the list, you remain on it for four years, so those elected in 06 are still on the list too. You can find them here:
http://www.compulink.co.uk/~rosenstiel/ldelections/06peers.htm
Additionally, all former MPs are on the list.
Is this it for this year ? When do we start moving towards proportionality? If we are supposed to wait another year then we need to create a stink about it right away. Labour, if you remember promised a proportional Lords in 1997, we have waited long enough.
Since when was Ken Macdonald a Lib Dem?
Maybe not everyone on the list actually wants to go to the Lords now – either they don’t fancy being abolished soon or they haven’t yet given up on the Commons.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?title=Colin_Firth%2C_Ken_Macdonald%2C_Brian_Eno_on_why_to_vote_Liberal_Democrat&pPK=f19f7e22-5149-4c12-984e-f54af288612d
Shame only 3 out of 9 are women too.
This is the one process where we can directly change the balance but every round of appointments makes the gap wider.
Lets hope the whole bloody lots are abolished soon. It doesn’t look likely, there would be no need for creating new peers if we just scrapped the lot and let them take their chances with the voters.
Kate Parminter is married to major donor and advisor, Neil Sherlock. Both very nice people but why is Kate chosen above the people nominated by the party?
By the way, i think the parties nomination process is awful anyway – it ought to be done in the smae way we select candidates for MEPs, but we have a system and it is being ignored.
The good point is that no defeated MPs have been appointed (as happened in 2005)
@Colin – I’ve never been massively convinced that MPs who are standing down to spend more time with their family etc are the best choice for working peers – which implies broadly the same commitment to attending Parliament as when they were an MP.
Richard Allan will have been well known to yesterday’s Radio 5 listeners as Facebook’s head of publicity/communications/operations
I see that one of Labour’s new working peers is Mr Roger Liddle, whom some of us will remember as a luminary of the SDP, and briefly the Liberal Democrats, before accepting a better offer from Blair/Mandelson. Many things have been said about Liddle, most of them not nice.
I’ve just remembered. Before Liddle became known to anyone outside the SDP, someone in the “Guardian”, having heard Liddle speak at an SDP conference, called him a “menacing aparatchik”. The sobriquet stuck.
Nobody concerned that we have just 56 more peers than the Lords Spiritual ?!
Dissolve it now.
I think Rachel Oliver should become a peer. She’s got an amazing CV in the party and out the party. Lots of contacts in Tories, and a high powered woman!