Category Archives: Lord Rennard

Unelected Lords debate elections for MEPs

Lord Rennard 05/03/2012 – 8:56 pm

Today, I challenged the Government to improve upon the unpopular ‘closed list’ system for electing Britain’s MEPs.  The debate was foreshadowed by a piece I wrote for Politics home: http://http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/more-power-to-choose-meps/ There was a fierce row about this issue in the House of Lords in 1999 when Labour carried out their Manifesto co […]

Keeping people with diabetes out of hospital

Lord Rennard 01/11/2011 – 7:01 pm

Today, Lord Collins of Highbury asked a question about how the Government was responding to the rapidly growing number of people with diabetes.  I used the question to draw attention to the report that I launched today on “Keeping people with diabetes out of hospital.” The report was drawn up through a series of meetings convened by the Primary Care Diabetes Society that I chaired in the H […]

Shades of Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ in Tahrir Square

Lord Rennard 31/07/2011 – 7:54 pm

Last week I spent a few days in Cairo encouraging some of the parties now preparing for elections.  I first met members of the Lib Dem sister party, the Democratic Front, a few years ago when democracy in Egypt seemed to be a far off aim.  None of them would have predicted the speed of change earlier this year when the protests in Tahrir Square led to the downfall of Hosni Mubarak.    Meet […]

The smoke clears

Lord Rennard 14/07/2011 – 5:30 pm

When I first came to the Lords (1999) the library was inaccessible for me because it was very heavy smoking area.  Some of the dining areas were also unpleasant and dominated by cigar smoke.  I remember Charles Kennedy coming to an afternoon tea in the Peers Dining Room that I hosted for all of us involved in his diary planning team.  Charles was told off by the waiters as he arrived smoking a […]

A fox in the House of Lords

Lord Rennard 24/06/2011 – 12:43 pm

My first posting on “Lords of the blog” comes a day after an uninvited visitor was sighted in the red carpeted corridors of the Lords.  A fox “broke in” to the House somewhere near the Speaker’s apartments and pest control had to be called in.  This happens occasionally.  I think that a fox was once filmed in the chamber.  The pest control people are more used to dealing with the f […]