Sunday, October 24, 2010

Peerages for Brian Paddick and Evan Harris?

Simon Walters in the Mail on Sunday says "it was claimed last night" that 44 new peers are to be created by the Coalition "to stop Labour sabotaging their policies in the Upper House". He doesn't say who made the claim though.

He goes on:
Mr Cameron reportedly intends to award 29 peerages to Tory donors and other political allies, with 15 for Mr Clegg's Liberal Democrats. By contrast, Ed Miliband will get just ten new Labour peers.

It is the biggest influx from a governing party since Tony Blair handed out a record 47 peerages when Labour won power in 1997, giving his party a majority in the Lords for the first time.
Who will those 15 new Liberal Democrat peers be? Walters speculates:
Lords insiders say Liberal Democrat candidates include Brian Paddick, the former Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner, who stood as the party's London mayoral candidate in 2008, and qualified doctor and anti-abortion campaigner Evan Harris, who lost his seat as Lib Dem MP for Oxford at the Election.

Three Liberal Democrat donors who each paid up to £250 a month into Mr Clegg's private bank account before he became party leader are also said to be under consideration.

They are Ian Wright, a senior executive at drinks firm Diageo; Neil Sherlock, head of public affairs at accountants KPMG; and Michael Young, a former gold-mining executive.

7 comments:

  1. Evan has previously said he doesn't want a peerage and would rather fight Ox West again to get back into the commons.

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  2. 'Qualified doctor and anti-abortion campaigner'?

    Er...

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  3. Pleased as I am to see Evan back in Parliament, let's hope that the list is well more than 50% women.

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  4. It's hardly news. Conference programme said they were seeking nominations for 15 "interim peers". I can't see Evan filling in the form, but as it probably required supporting signatures it can't be too much of a mystery whwether he did or not.

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  5. Simon: I think you will find that Clegg is able to nominate people beyond those on the list elected by Conference.

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  6. They asked me but I told them that the money's not good enough. And I'm not brill at speeches. So they asked again and said somebody would write the speeches for me. Still I demurred. (Get that fancy word?) Then they promised foreign trips. I told them I get sick abroad. So they asked again and offered...well... on a respectable site like this one, I hesitate to speak of such things. Will they stop at nothing?

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