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Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet Team announced

New Lib Dem spokespeople announced

29 July, 2015 @ 11:06 AM

Tim Farron has set about ending the Liberal Democrats’ lack diversity at the top of the party – by naming the most diverse shadow cabinet team in the party’s history to lead the party's fightback.

The new Lib Dem leader announced a spokesperson team including 12 women and 10 men to lead the fight back against the Tory government.

Tim also chose a team from both inside Parliament and out, from across the United Kingdom, and from people who served in Government and those who didn’t.

On making the announcement Tim said:

“I am delighted to be able to announce my team of party spokespeople.  The team I am announcing today is the Liberal voice that Britain desperately needs. It features some of the best campaigners that the party has, balanced with the experience and economic credibility that our party has developed over the last five years in government.

“It was important to me to be able to call on the advice and experience of people at all levels of our party and I believe we have an excellent team to lead the Lib Dem fight back. Together, we will take our ideas, our values and our liberal messages to every corner of Britain. We will make the case for housing, immigration, Europe, environmentalism and human rights.”

The full spokesperson team is:

Leader: Tim Farron MP
Economics: Baroness Susan Kramer 
Foreign Affairs/Chief Whip/Leader of the house: Tom Brake MP
Defence: Baroness Judith Jolly 
Home Affairs: Alistair Carmichael MP
Health: Norman Lamb MP
Education: John Pugh MP
Work and Pensions: Baroness Zahida Manzoor
Business: Lorely Burt
Energy and Climate Change: Lynne Featherstone 
Local Government: Mayor of Watford, Cllr Dorothy Thornhill 
Transport: Baroness Jenny Randerson 
Environment and Rural Affairs: Baroness Kate Parminter 
International Development: Baroness Lindsay Northover 
Culture Media and Sport: Baroness Jane Bonham-Carter
Equalities: Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece
Justice/Attorney General: Lord Jonathan Marks 
Northern Ireland: Lord John Alderdice 
Scotland: Willie Rennie MSP, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats
Wales: Kirsty Williams AM, Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats
Campaigns Chair: Greg Mulholland MP
Grassroots Campaigns: Cllr Tim Pickstone, Chief Executive of the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gordon T on July 29, 2015 at 15:24

A neat tie-up between this thread and the thread about Jeremy Corbyn:

'Vote for Jeremy Corbyn, and help raise the Lib Dems from the dead' at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/28/jeremy-corbyn-... 

Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on July 29, 2015 at 23:19

Maybe the Lib Dems should avoid the term 'Shadow Cabinet'. Maybe 'Alternative Cabinet' would avoid anyone suggesting that they're only a shadow of what they were.

This looks like the makings of a good team whose diversity is not just a result of being forced by the Commons realities to cast the net wide and trawl the shallows and far-flung creeks. Certainly Liberal Lords & Ladies will be kept busy, unlike Tony Blair's bra-wearing coke-sniffing ex-ministers.

But excuse me introducing the unmentionable F-word: FAITH. In defining Liberal Diversity we shouldn't NOT mention faith. As a more-or-less liberal Catholic myself, give me a good rational Evangelical like Tim Farron or a liberal Muslim like Meral Hussein-Ece any day in preference to that insufferable Catholic Iain Duncan Smith or that pseudo-Catholic Tony Blair ("Oh Lord, make me catholic, but not just yet while I have New Labour to run! Cherie will do God while I tread carefully.") with his money-making "faith foundation" and love of the poor and good governance in faraway places. 

So if a tenner will buy me four voting rights across the board, they'll go to Jeremy Corbyn, Tim Farron, John Alderdice and (maybe that honest wee Liverpool Catholic) Andy Burnham. A thoroughly rational and diverse selection, you may agree? John Humphrys might not.  

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on July 30, 2015 at 10:12

There's a website, OAE, which offers to advise people on applying to become a cross-bench peer. Though I suspect from your postings on HoL you may not yet be cross enough. Mildly riled but not truly angry.

On the other hand, as "Baron" Sewel shows, the role would not suit everyone. It imposes some very harsh restrictions on personal freedoms. You get unwanted public scrutiny on the intimate details of your home life: the family friends you invite to your flat; your attire in the bedchamber; and impertinent comments on the air you breathe.

The contortions of the politicians on Corbyn show that many of them detest the whole notion of free elections. Paying three quid for a vote hardly goes far enough as Labour may not break even on the cost of the ballot.

Though I realise that a return to a franchise based purely on wealth could meet some old-fashioned objections. So a better solution is to abandon the absurdity of having two expensive and wasteful Houses of Parliament. Instead let's have a simple straightforward, efficient, understandable and cost effective single house. A House of Lords self-nominated by the existing members. Advised by some nationally respected figures such as the Dimbleby brothers and Fiona Bruce.

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