Congratulations to Ulysses and Dave H who were the winners of the last quiz. I have been somewhat delayed in posting the latest quiz (for the reasons see here), but here it is. As usual, the first two readers to supply the correct answers will be the winners.
1. Name three current members of the House of Lords who have served in the executive of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
2. Name three current members of the House who have held ministerial office in both Houses of Parliament.
3. Name three peers who sit on the cross-benches who have been leader or president of their party.
1. Lord Wallace of Tankerness, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, Lord Stephen
2. Baroness Chalker of Wallasey (Europe, Overseas Development), Lord Gilbert (Transport, Defence procurement), Lord Mandelson (Trade and NI, then pretty much everything)
3. Lord Elis-Thomas, Lord Molyneaux of Killead, Lord Owen.
CM: Congratulations: you are the first with a full and accurate response.
Lord Mandelson was indeed pretty much the minister for almost everything else when he was in the Lords – his portfolio even included outer space!
Hmmm, this is a tricky one!
1. Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, Lord Trimble.
2. Lord Howell of Guildford, Lord Waddington, Lord Mandelson.
3. Lord Molyneaux, Lord Elis-Thomas, Lord Bannside.
Emmy: Congratulations – you are the other winner this week.
1. Name three current members of the House of Lords who have served in the executive of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
2. Name three current members of the House who have held ministerial office in both Houses of Parliament.
3. Name three peers who sit on the cross-benches who have been leader or president of their party.
So much for people with wide spread experience of the real world.
Yet another quiz about failed politicians still claiming tax payers money in the Lords.
Lord Blagger: Hardly. Better to be someone who has made an effort and achieved something than to be someone who criticises from the sidelines.
Lord Howell presumably has a desk in the FO
and does a full day’s work, for which, at the age of 74, he gets good money.
It is certainly a continuing question of enrichment AND elevation to higher things.
Ambition does not stop at membership of the Lords. The various ranks of peer take some thinking about too, and precisely how and why they achieve the rank of Marquis or Earl in a single life time……. or two!
What I wonder about is Paul Mcartney, the gentle knight.
Gareth Howell: I think Lord Howell, although a Cabinet minister under Thatcher, had a business career in recent years. I doubt if he needed to take up the post of Minister of State – not the most lavishly paid of positions. It’s not elevation to higher things in his case, nor of notable enrichment.
As for elevation within the peerage, which is confined to hereditary peers, I cannot recall the last time one was advanced from one rank to another.
Possibly Viscount Dilhorne in 1964