Now that the House and Lords of the Blog are back in action, I thought I would resume the weekly test of readers’ knowledge about the Lords. This week there are three questions about the current membership. As usual, the first two readers to supply the correct answers will be the winners.
1. Who is the youngest member of the House of Lords?
2. Who is the oldest member of the House to have spoken in debate since the new Parliament met?
3. Who is the youngest member of the Government Front Bench in the Lords?
Just a quick guess from me:
1. Lord Wei
2. Lord Weidenfeld
3. Baroness Warsi
Ooops, Lord Campbell of Alloway is older than Lord Weidenfeld, so I go with him.
1) Lord Freyberg
2) Help! Perhaps Lord Ferrers.
3) Baroness Warsi
1. Lord Wei (who took the oath on Thursday)
2. Lord Weidenfeld
3. Baroness Warsi
1. Lord Wei (b. 1977)
2. Lord Campbell of Alloway (b. 1917)
3. Baroness Warsi (b. 1971)
Great to see the quiz back. I’m sure we’ve all missed it!
Correction: 2. Lord Campbell of Alloway (born 1917)
Lord Norton,
Thank you for evoking a blush out here as to our ‘knowledge’ about the Upper House.
In my case it will take time to run back through my hard-drive BBC Parliament recordings to bring up clearcut answers to your first three questions.
My other resort will be to the website links to House of Lords Information, and so forth and (others respectfully be warned) potentially very time-swallowing links and invitations and alternatives not just therein but in an array of other Parliamentary information sites and email-subscriptions possibilities.
In respect of which latter, one has to say, all such details are probably quite essential if we as a People as well as as a Parliament are to be both thorough in our fact-gathering and deliberation and comfortably enough forward-moving in our respective critical or constructive citizen’s’ submission-writing towards your (our Lords’) parliamentary processes of scrutiny and sound-legislating.
Meanwhile, the only instant recall I have of such members’ details is of a number of pieces of quite appropriate humour, two of which were contained in the respective speeches of a respected ‘old member’ and an ‘up-and-coming oily young member’.
One has to laugh, but in that to wear headphones and have a soundproof TV room, lest one awaken slumbering neighbours, my lord.
1) Unless it’s changed recently, Baroness Warsi
2) Earl Ferrers (’29), just older than Viscount Bridgeman.
3) Baroness Warsi again.
2) No! It’s Lord Archer of Sandwell.
Changing 2 again, Lord Campbell of Alloway.
1) Lord Wei
2) Not sure; at a guess, the Earl Ferrers?
3) Baroness Warsi by the looks of things
I have missed the quiz, I have to say!
1) Wei
2) Ferrers
3) Warsi (also, I think, the prettiest on the government frontbench; though Lord Strathclyde comes a close second!)
Actually, no, Campbell of Alloway spoke, so probably him. That would make
1) Wei
2) Campbell of Alloway
3) Warsi
I am glad that the return of the quiz proved stimulating.
1. The youngest member of the Lords is Lord Wei (b.1977) who, as Rob mentioned, was introduced on Thursday.
2. The oldest member of the House to speak in the new Parliament is Lord Campbell of Alloway (b. 1917). This question is clearly the one that most exercised participants.
3. This was the relatively easy question. As all contributors note, the youngest member of the Cabinet is Baroness Warsi (b. 1971).
The first two readers to contribute the correct answers were Ulysses and Jonathan – who just pipped Rob (correcting his second answer) at the post.