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Here is the latest nomination in our series highlighting people David Cameron should consider appointing to the House of Lords.
If you would like to nominate someone, please email Jonathan Isaby with your suggestion, ideally including key arguments for
the nomination as well as biographical information. The sources of nominations will be treated confidentially where
requested.
No. 6: Rod Bluh
Robert Buckland writes:
"I would like to nominate Rod Bluh, the leader of Swindon Council. Rod, 53, is a Chartered Accountant and has been an active Conservative for many years, but his rise in local government has been dramatic. Elected in 2004, he entered the Swindon Cabinet as Lead Member for Economic Regeneration in 2005 and became Deputy Leader. In 2006, he was elected Leader of Swindon and under his leadership, the Council has improved dramatically and has delivered in a number of key areas, including:
- Continuous delivery of low Council Tax rises;
- The building of a new Central Library for Swindon, a project that was talked about for years under Labour but which we delivered on time and in budget;
- The signing of two major town centre regeneration projects.
"Rod is reaching out to parts of the community that have never had any contact with Conservatives – he is described by many people who are now supporting us for the first time as 'a breath of fresh air'. At this year’s Party Conference, he spoke at a number of fringe meetings on the subject of housing and local government. He has a high profile in the South West Region, and also serves on the Wiltshire Police Authority.
“Rod played a key part in steering through the Council’s recent groundbreaking decision to pull out of the Speed Camera Partnership. Rod leads a dynamic and forward-thinking Conservative administration that has continued to gain council seats since taking control in 2004. Rod Bluh’s experience in leading a largely urban Unitary Authority that has made huge progress in only a few years would be a real asset to the Conservative benches in the Lords”.
> Yesterday's nomination: Mimi Harker
Here is the latest nomination in our series highlighting people David Cameron should consider appointing to the House of Lords.
If you would like to nominate someone, please email Jonathan Isaby with your suggestion, ideally including key arguments for
the nomination as well as biographical information. The sources of nominations will be treated confidentially where
requested.
No. 5: Mimi Harker
A reader writes:
"I would like to nominate Mimi Harker. She has fought and reached numerous finals, losing mostly to local candidates in open primaries. As a local councillor on Chiltern District, she is by far the most well known person in the Chesham and Amersham constitutency. That has been built upon working for her council constituents and leading numerous campaigns on various issues including post office closures, 12A certification at the cinema, grammar school catchment areas, schooling for disabled children and convincing Chiltern Railways to maintain the 8:12am Marylebone service so parents had time to drop off their children to childminders and still be able to get to work on time. Mimi was born in India, brought up in the UK and has a knack of getting on with most."
Mimi Harker set up her own business with her husband 20 years ago and stood at the 2005 general election in West Bromwich West. She is now the Cabinet member for Community, Young People and Communications on Chiltern Council and a member of the recently established Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Women Councillors Taskforce. You can find out more about her at her website.
Jonathan Isaby
> Yesterday's nomination: Richard Evans
Here is the latest nomination in our series highlighting people David Cameron should consider appointing to the House of Lords.
If you would like to nominate someone, please email Jonathan Isaby with your suggestion, ideally including key arguments for the nomination as well as biographical information. The sources of nominations will be treated confidentially where requested.
No. 4: Richard Evans
Ben Jeffreys writes:
"Richard is a hugely capable mathematician who gained a doctorate in statistics and could have gone into any financial institution in the City and made a fortune. Alternatively, he could have gone into any school in the country as a Maths teacher.
"What he has actally done is spent twenty years in some of the toughest state schools in the country. As Deputy Head (Finance) of Copeland Community School, he has taken a school with a 97% ethnic minority base in one of the toughest parts of London and built it up into a beacon school, with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron all regular visitors. Richard has received an MBE for services to education.
"He also has impeccable credentials as a party man. He was Young Conservative Chairman in Finchley when Margaret Thatcher was its MP and, from a young age, was popping into Downing Street to support the Conservative leader. He went on to sit on Westminster Council, to stand in Neath at a by-election and to stand twice in Hendon.
"Richard has therefore proven himself in his career and in his work for the Conservative Party over a good many years. In addition to this, many activists in North London would join me in saying that he is one of the most supportive and caring people that you could meet - a good friend to a great many, and not just his school students.
"As a peer, Richard would bring an enormous amount to the Education team. There are only 6 current Conservative MPs with a background in teaching and not one of them has taught in the last 20 years. There are 6 teachers standing as candidates in the 160 most marginal seats and few have anything like Richard's experience. His experience and knowledge of the state system would be a massive boost to our ability to speak on a critical policy area and boost our credibility enormously. He would be a huge asset to David Cameron's Government.."
> Yesterday's nomination: Charles Moore
Here is the latest nomination in our series highlighting people David Cameron should consider appointing to the House of Lords.
If you would like to nominate someone, please email Jonathan Isaby with your suggestion, ideally including key arguments for
the nomination as well as biographical information. The sources of nominations will be treated confidentially where
requested.
No. 3: Charles Moore
James Hinksman writes:
"How about Charles Moore? His merits are obvious: former editor of the Spectator and both Telegraphs; biographer of Mrs T; work with Policy Exchange; crusader against the licence fee; and always very sound but some way off right-wing loon."
I should declare an interest in that it was Charles Moore who took me on at the Daily Telegraph in one of his final appointments before departing as editor in 2003. However, having worked under him and observed his work over the years as a journalist, author and think-tanker, I would wholeheartedly endorse his elevation to the peerage. He is an extremely thoughtful Conservative whose views encompass some traditional conservatism with a generous dash of libertarianism: during his final two years at the helm of the Daily Telegraph the paper carried the Free Country theme across many an editorial and opinion piece. His regular columns for both the Telegraph and the Spectator remain essential reading and he would be a great addition to the Lords.
Jonathan Isaby
> Yesterday's nomination: Richard Balfe
Today we publish the second nomination in our series highlighting people David Cameron should consider appointing to the House of Lords.
If you would like to nominate someone, please email Jonathan Isaby with your suggestion, ideally including key arguments for
the nomination as well as biographical information. The sources of nominations will be treated confidentially where
requested.
No. 2: Richard Balfe
J
ustin Hinchliffe writes:
"I would nominate Richard Balfe, the heroic Labour MEP who defected to us under IDS's leadership. He's a decent bloke - very committed to the cause, hard-working and incredibly intelligent. Despite all of this, he was shafted by the Party and placed so low he couldn't continue his work in the European Parliament. He is now David Cameron's personal envoy to the trade union movement. He would make a first class peer and government minister under the next Cameron-led government."
Since his defection from Labour in 2002, Richard Balfe has demonstrated that his crossing the floor was no short term opportunistic measure and has been working diligently in the Conservative Party's interest. He wrote this piece for ConservativeHome about the party's relationship with the unions last year.
Jonathan Isaby
> Yesterday's nomination: Howard Flight
Last month we invited ConservativeHome readers to nominate the people they would like to see David Cameron appoint to the House of Lords and today we publish the first of one hundred nominations. Whilst we are neither proposing (nor expecting!) that all the individuals we highlight be appointed to the Lords forthwith, we hope this exercise will demonstrate the considerable pool of talent from which David Cameron will be able to choose when he gets the opportunity to swell the Tory ranks in the Upper House.
If you would like to nominate someone, please email Jonathan Isaby with your suggestion, ideally including key arguments for the nomination as well as biographical information. The sources of nominations will be treated confidentially where requested.
No. 1: Howard Flight
Howard Flight was Conservative Member of Parliament for Arundel and South Downs from 1997 until 2005, when his parliamentary career was brought to an abrupt halt by the then party leader, Michael Howard, a few weeks before the general election. Remarks he had made at a private meeting of Conservative Way Forward - in which he suggested that the party could make greater public spending cuts than those to which it had publicly committed itself - were leaked to the media and his resignation as a party deputy chairman was not enough for Michael Howard. Flight had the Tory whip withdrawn and was told that he would not be able to fight the general election for the party.
Using his wealth of business experience, he had previously done sterling work on the shadow Treasury team and organised the James Review to cut out waste in public spending. He also established the Conservative City Circle, helping to build links between the Conservative Party and the City. Since leaving Parliament he has remained actively involved in the CCC and most recently has written a pamphlet for the Centre for Policy Studies on the banking crisis. He has also written a couple of times for Platform on ConservativeHome.
There is a certain irony in the fact that during his final years in the Commons, he was one of the few people warning of the dangers of both the excessive increase in public spending and in consumer and mortgage borrowing and house prices. Many readers have suggested that it would be a travesty for the party not to take advantage of his expertise and that he would be an ideal addition to the House of Lords.
Jonathan Isaby
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