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
"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