As Steph promptly answered yesterday’s question, here’s a couple more:
Peer 1
1. As a peer, I have been in and out.
2. I spent a year organising my parliamentary troops.
3. I have served royalty.
Who am I?
Peer 2:
1. I am one of the youngest members of the House.
2. I was a candidate for the Lord Speakership in 2006.
Who am I?
PEER 2 Lord Redesdale
Peer 2 is Rupert Bertram Mitford, 6th Baron Redesdale
Peer 1 is proving difficult :O((
These questions are getting harder!
Steph
1) George Patrick John Rushworth Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe, Lord Jellicoe of Southampton? He was a HP then after ’99 had a LP conferred so he could remain. He was Whip/Lord-in-Waiting (I checked better this time!) for one year (1961) and was Page of Honour to King George VI at his Coronation (1937).
2)Rupert Bertram Mitford, 6th Baron Redesdale (b 1967)
Croft: Nice try, but it is not Lord Jellicoe as he went straight from being a hereditary peer to being a life peer. There was no period spent outside the House. Both peers are current members of the House.
It’s a tough one. The best I could come up with is the Earl of Mar and Kellie. He’s been both (2) a whip and (3) a Deputy Lieutenant.
Jonathan: As with Croft’s answer, I am impressed by the research undertaken and the ingenuity of the answer. However, I fear it is not the Earl of Mar and Kellie. Being a Deputy Lieutenant is not quite a direct link with royalty. Had he been a Lord Lieutenant, that might be a different matter.
Lord Salisbury/Cranborne
floetry: I’m afraid not. The Marquess of Salisbury – Lord Cranborne as was – was in the same position as the late Lord Jellicoe. As a former Leader of the House, he was offered a life peerage (and formally sits as Lord Gascoyne-Cecil, though he is on leave of absence), and so has not had a period of unbroken service. Although, like the Earl of Mar and Kellie, he is a Deputy Lieutenant, he has not held a position that is a distinctive one in terms of service to royalty.
I believe #1 is Nicholas Lowther, 2nd Viscount Ullswater, as he was in the House before 1999, left, and then returned in 2003. He was also a Lord-in-Waiting, as well as Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms (hence the “Parliamentary Troops”).
I agree with many others that the second is Lord Redesdale.
Lord Norton, is the answer Viscount Ullswater? He left the House of Lords in 1999 and returned in 2003, having been elected at the by-election held to replace the Viscount of Oxfuird. He was a Lord-in-Waiting from 1989 to 1990 and Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms from 1993 to 1994. He was also private secretary to Princess Margaret from 1998 until her death in 2002. He would therefore seem to fit your clues on all counts.
I have a quiz question of my own..
Q/ Which noble Lord, when faced with the news that the ‘peasants are revolting’ using a slogan dreamt up by his party’s leader said words to the effect of ‘Let them eat brioche by getting a job abroad..’
Answers on a postcard…
And another question to ponder…
Do you think the public would embrace the idea of the Lords being paid a substantial stipend so long as they didn’t take paid consultancy AND there was a cast-iron guarantee that Lord Lloyd-Webber would never ever be allowed to appear on our televisions on Saturday night ??
To be honest, I think many people would be willing to put up with a Cuban-style dictatorship if it meant never having to endure the third rate lowest-common-denominator tripe which Lloyd-Webber thinks passes for ‘music’ being foisted upon us at the licence-fee-payer’s expense.
Please, Lord Norton, he humbly beg and beseech you, have a word…
…. I give in :O((
I’ve spent the night dreaming about an Equerry, a Privy Counsellor, a couple of jailed peers, Black Rod and nearly every peer on a leave of absence…
It’s clue 2 ?? aaarrrggghhh !!!
Steph
Hmm, I’m stumped for the moment. I’ll await Steph’s answer :-). As I’m not going to win any prizes for the correct answer perhaps I should try winning one for cheek! If Jellicoe as a former soldier was/is still a member of the Naval & Military Club then he was while a peer (per the club’s nickname) ‘In & Out’.:-)
(I’m not sure how much you invite suggested topics/questions; I don’t think you’ve mentioned it before but it might be interesting sometime to find out more about the choice of supporting peers at an introduction. I notice you chose Lord Weatherill and Lord Newton of Braintree. Do peers choose by friendship/party/family etc?)
The correct answer to question 1, must be Nicholas Lowther, 2nd Viscount Ullswater. He was Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms (Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords) in 1993 under major, before moving onwards and became Private Secretary to Princes Margaret in 1998 until her death. He was the 3rd hereditary peer elected after the 1999 act to succeed a member that had died. This mean he was out of the house between 1999 and 2003.
The answers are Viscount Ullswater and Lord Redesdale.
FinnishCowl: Well done, you got in first with the correct answer. However, Nichael also deserves credit for identifying Viscount Ullswater’s distinctive service to royalty.
Croft: I’ll be happy to do a post on supporting peers.
Bedd Gelert: I can see the attraction of providing a paid stipend, but I can equally see the controversy that it would generate since it would be paid regardless of attendance. Why should no-shows receive the same stipend as a peer who devotes a great deal of time to the work of the House? I can see the attraction of banning consultancies, at least those that derive from parliamentary work.
Sorry, Lord Norton, but it was wishful thinking on my part that we could find some way of luring Andrew Lloyd Webber back into the House so that he wasn’t irritating the nation on the television..
Of course, you could argue that he doesn’t need the money – in which case I would ask the rhetorical question why he feels the need to inflict himself and his musical tastes on the nation…
Lord Norton
Apologies for a post astoundingly off topic. I recently sent off a private email to your account at the University of Hull about something not really appropriate for a blog comment but not important enough for WriteToThem. It occurs to me, however, that many people have email addresses they don’t check that regularly. Is that account active, or is there a better channel to use?
McDuff: Both my Hull and Lords e-mail accounts are active and checked regularly (though keeping pace with them is a bit like running in order to stand still!); your e-mail has arrived safely.
I was thinking last night that if no one had answered it in the morning I’d start looking at the by-elections. And I’d only been mentioning Viscount Ullswater a few weeks back why didn’t anything click… My brain must be too cold.
Re the attendance allowance my understanding is that for practical purposes it goes unquestioned. You can walk into the chamber, sit down, stand up and claim it (on trust). I appreciate that’s taking it to an exaggerated extreme but though I’m not sure what workable measure you could come up with to determine real attendance/work in the house the present one is not very fair/robust. An enhanced rate for shadow ministers (presently unpaid I believe), committee chairman or even perhaps for all those who work on committees would better reward hard working peers?
Lord Norton
Capital!
I’ll leave these people to their regularly scheduled comments thread.