The Voice

Times obituary of Anna Werrin

By | Wed 6th January 2010 - 7:30 pm

We reported last month the sad death of Anna Werrin, the highly influential personal assistant to Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy throughout his Parliamentary career until his resignation as party leader.

Today’s Times publishes an obituary of Anna in its Lives in Brief section:

Anna Werrin, personal assistant to Charles Kennedy, was born on June 14, 1959. She died after a stroke on December 18, 2009, aged 50

Anna Werrin was the personal assistant to Charles Kennedy, and throughout his leadership of the Liberal Democrats she was his principal aide, head of office and, effectively, his gatekeeper — and as such she fully earned a reputation in Westminster for being “redoubtable”.

Anna Werrin was born in Plymouth in 1959. She went to work for Kennedy from shortly after his election as an MP at the age of 23, when she had recently completed a degree in politics and sociology at Brunel University.

Just how important her role was became apparent after Kennedy stepped down. She revealed the leading role she played in fundraising for the party, representing the leader at fundraising events, liaising for him with key donors, and managing the leader’s relationship with key party management committees, including “assisting with the election of individuals to key posts”.

Among the tricky issues with which she was closely involved were vetting donations to the party and putting up a protective shield whenever Kennedy drank too much.

After Kennedy stood down Werrin undertook consultancy work for the BBC’s licence fee campaign and for the Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Razzall. She was campaign manager for Chris Huhne’s failed leadership bid in 2007.

Read more by or more about .
This entry was posted in Obituaries.
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 Hirst
    Relationships are key to most issues. Your relationship with others, the state, political parties, and issues such as democracy. To come to these with an open m...
  • Peter Hirst
    The issues as I see them stem from a lack of transparency and accountability in public life. I might add a rotten system with no rules and unfairness ingrained ...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    John Kelly's point matches what I see on the doorstep. In urban wards, people (predominantly younger professionals) are voting on who they think they are and wh...
  • Peter Hirst
    Iran is a theocracy and that alters everything. When a society has a central belief system that overrides everything you have to see issues from their perspecti...
  • Judi Conner
    Most of these arguments apply as much to rural areas as to urban ones. And yes, “liberalism’s great victories were disruptive ones: challenging entrenched ...