NAME... Dr Lee Rotherham (photo by David Wilkinson)
WELL KNOWN FOR... The high-profile Butler Campaign when he stood against Shaun Woodward in the 2001 General Election. Lately, he has hit the airwaves as co-author of the Bumper Book of Government Waste (about which he wrote this Platform post).
CONSERVATIVE PARTY HISTORY... Lee is a leading Conservative expert on anything to do with the EU. First involved in politics as the eyes and ears of Sir Richard Body and the Group of Eight rebels, then after the 1997 election was loaned out to successive Shadow Foreign Secretaries. He has been Campaign Secretary to the celebrated CAFE (currently dormant) since its launch, and was a key Eurosceptic mover and shaker in Brussels during the drafting of the EU Constitution. Dr Rotherham fought Denis Macshane in the 2005 election (Rotherham for Rotherham), and was on Liam Fox’s leadership team.
SPECIALIST AREAS... Defence (has done a six month tour in Iraq); heritage protection; deregulation; fraud and waste. His pamphlet on fisheries paved the way for current policy (the current status of which is unclear).
DID YOU KNOW...? He is a fluent French speaker whose accent betrays a Montreal twang after a few pints. Rewrote one of the Bluffer’s Guides a few years back. Responsible for spotting the backdoor introduction of ID cards across departments under the Major Government: a Sunday Times front page spread killed the move.
MAIN STRENGTHS... Political consistency. Humour.
IDEAL CONSTITUENCY... East Midlands (where he has family ties).
MORE INFORMATION... No current website but plenty of published work on line. He writes a regular column for the European Journal, accessible here. See also the key paper here and his EPP post to the Platform of this site.
WOULD LEE BE ON YOUR GOLDLIST?
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VOTING IN THIS SURVEY HAS NOW CLOSED. 171 VOTES WERE RECEIVED. 57% WERE IN FAVOUR OF LEE ROTHERHAM JOINING THE GOLDLIST. 37% WERE AGAINST. 6% DIDN'T KNOW.
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