This week’s quiz question is different to those of previous weeks and relies on knowledge of peers.
The Guide to Business has a number of pictures of the chamber and of peers speaking. If you look at page 6 of the Guide, you will see in the top-left picture a cross-bench peer addressing the House, in the top-right picture a member of the Conservative front bench speaking from the dispatch box, and in the bottom-left picture a Labour back-bench peer speaking.
Can you name the peers? A commendation for anyone able to identify two of the speakers and the usual accolade for the first person to identify all three.
Gulp!
1) Not sure atm
2) Looks like Lord Taylor of Holbeach but I’m not convinced.
3) Waheed Alli, Lord Alli
Dear Lord Norton,
I think they are as follows:
the cross-bench peer is Lord Broers.
the Opposition front bench peer is Lord Taylor of Holbeach.
the Labour back-bench peer is Lord Ali.
Howridiculous.
1) Perhaps Lord Broers
The joys of trying to find a picture to confirm a supposition are much harder due to the parliament website having links that don’t work – many of the click through links to biographies resolve to ‘You do not have permission to view this’ Whether the links work on the parliamentary intranet I don’t know – perhaps all the biographies are now though the externally accessible dods.
So two parts of the parliamentary site give two different links – of which only one works.
http://biographies.parliament.uk/parliament/default.asp?id=26958
when you need to go via
http://www.dodonline.co.uk/engine.asp?lev1=4&lev2=38&menu=81&biog=y&id=26958
1. looks like Lord Broers, who is also our company chairman, among his many other day jobs. I’ve only seen him in the flesh once, though.
3. Presumably Lord Alli.
I don’t know who no. 2 is.
Croft: you need to access those biographies via links on this page:
http://www.parliament.uk/directories/house_of_lords_information_office/alphabetical_list_of_members.cfm
as it checks the referring page so that only people coming via the parliament site get free access. You can always find that by Googling list of peers.
Jonathan: My second link was indeed from the page reference you gave and does work both directly and indirectly. My first link is from a different part of the parliamentary website and doesn’t work directly from that page of the site.
howridiculous: You were quick! I narrowed it down to a few peers and had to hunt for some photos
Croft: the second link doesn’t work fully unless you have a subscription to Dodonline. It does show Lord Alli’s photo, which it what you were looking for on this occasion, but not any of the other biographical information!
Thanks, Croft. It was quite easy really as Lord Broers is one of those peers who has very distinctive and distinguished hair. Perhaps one week we may get to vote on this blog on which peer we think has the best coiffurre!
On the links, I, too, have had this problem many times. Not good. I also don’t think that the biographical details of MPs and Peers on the Parliament website should in effect be ‘contracted out’ to an external company. Surely these details could be dealt with ‘in house’?
Lord Norton, if it is not too great an imposition, perhaps you could enquire why the biogs are not dealt with ‘in house’ and also how much it costs to have Dods do them or alternatively how much Dods pay to have the links through to their website as they give the company free publicity, although when the links don’t work obviously not very good publicity!
Howridiculous.
Howridiculous wins the prize for being the first to identify correctly all three peers.
The three peers are indeed Lord Broers, who has seved as a professor of electrical engineering, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, and President of the Royal Academy of Engineering; Lord Taylor of Holbeach, former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party; and Lord Alli, chairman of Chorio plc and former managing director of Planet 24 Productions.
On the links to Dods profiles, I am aware of the problem: I noticed it when variously accessing the site other than through the parliamentary intranet. It is something I shall pursue. Howridiculous: I shall add your points to the list of what I need to explore.
Thank you, Lord Norton, that will be very helpful.
Howridiculous.