Ah yes, the 2008 Interim Peers List. And how, exactly, did they get on?...

Yesterday, I caught up with the first three elected Interim Peers lists, as elected by Federal Conference delegates in 1999, 2004 and 2006. Today, it's time to move on to the 2008 list, and the 2010 'top-up' list that went with it.

Here's the 2008 list, in order of election (successful candidates highlighted in red=;

1. Brian Paddick - count 1 (1 August 2013)
2. Duncan Brack - count 1
3. Viv Bingham - count 1
4. Ramesh Dewan - count 1
5. Ben Stoneham - count 1 (19 November 2010)
6. Julie Smith - count 1 (8 August 2014)
7. Jonathan Fryer - count 1
8. Gordon Lishman - count 1
9. David Williams - count 1
10. Catherine Bearder - count 2
11. Jonathan Marks - count 2 (19 November 2010)
12. Chris White - count 3
13. Jock Gallagher - count 4
14. Ruth Coleman - count 4
15. Jackie Pearcey - count 5
16. Justine McGuinness - count 6
17. James Kempton - count 6
18. Bill le Breton - count 7
19. Robert Adamson - count 15
20. Josephine Hayes - count 23
21. Peter Price - count 27
22. Qassim Afzal - count 27
23. Monroe Palmer - count 27 (19 November 2010)
24. Fiyaz Mughal - count 29
25. Bernard Greaves - count 30
26. Jane Smithard - count 31
27. Alan Sherwell - count 31
28. Jeremy Ambache - count 31
29. John Stevens - count 31
30. Tony Vickers - count 31

Whatever happened to the Interim Peers List... Redux

More than four years ago, I took a look back at the Party's concept of electing its nominees to the House of Lords, a concept that, to be honest, I had some scepticism about at the time, and to some extent still do.

I started with a look at the 1999 list, from which nine, including the woman who had subsequently become my wife, had been selected. Since then, Monroe Palmer - number 17 on that list - and Dee Doocey - number 38 - were elevated in the first Coalition list in November 2010 (the May 2010 list was Gordon Brown's dissolution list).

Next, the 2004 list. Two people, Robin Teverson and Celia Thomas, were preferred in 2006,  and Monroe was on that list too - at number 4 this time - whilst Dee had chosen not to run. However, there were three more names on that list who went on to get a peerage. Ben Stoneham, at number 12, was another on the November 2010 list, as was Jonathan Marks (number 28). And, loosely sandwiched between the two at number 24, was Julie Smith, whose peerage was announced earlier this month.

The 2006 list drew an even shorter straw, with only four appointments made during its lifetime - Sue Garden (number 7) got a thoroughly justified nomination in September 2007. However, four more women on that list - Dee Doocey (number 2 and already mentioned above), Kate Parminter (number 3), Olly Grender (number 9) and Meral Ece (number 21) - went to get peerages, Kate and Meral in May 2010, and Olly in August last year.


So, what has happened since then?...

Whatever happened to the Interim Peers List? (part 3)

In 2004, it was time for a new list, and another election was held. For those who hadn't been lucky thus far, another hurdle beckoned. At least this time, the competition was less fierce... much less fierce.

The result was;

1. Robin Teverson - stage 1 (10 April 2006)
2. Ramesh Dewan - stage 1
3. Hilary Stephenson - stage 1
4. Monroe Palmer - stage 18
5. Celia Thomas - stage 49 (10 April 2006)
6. Jonathan Fryer - stage 56
7. Jock Gallagher - stage 61
8. Dawn Davidson - stage 67
9. John Stevens - stage 69
10. Bill Le Breton - stage 69
11. James Kempton - stage 72
12. Ben Stoneham - stage 72
13. Robert Adamson - stage 73
14. Chris White - stage 73
15. John Smithson - stage 75
16. David Williams - stage 75
17. Jo Hayes - stage 76
18. Catherine Bearder - stage 76
19. Jane Smithard - stage 76
20. Maitland Mackie - stage 76
21. Jackie Pearcey - stage 77
22. Ruth Coleman - stage 78
23. Celia Goodhart - stage 78
24. Julie Smith - stage 78
25. Peter Price - stage 78
26. Qassim Afzal - stage 78
27. Alan Sherwell - stage 78
28. Jonathan Marks - stage 78
29. Paul Tilsley - stage 78
30. Liz Barron - stage 79

Only two successful candidates this time, and another candidate made it to the European Parliament at her third attempt, Catherine Bearder in 2009.

There were only two lists, however, the Dissolution Honours List in 2005, when David Chidgey, Nigel Jones, Archie Kirkwood, Jenny Tonge and Paul Tyler were the nominees of Charles Kennedy, and 2006, when another five were favoured, the two from the list, and John Burnett (who lost Torridge and West Devon the previous year), Brian Cotter (likewise in Weston-super-Mare) and John Lee.

The bad news was that the list was only good for two years... time to go back to the electoral drawing board...

Whatever happened to the Interim Peers List? (part 2)

So, we know what happened to the original 1999 list. i.e. nine of them got peerages. That doesn't sound very impressive, until you look at the number of Liberal Democrat peerages created in the five years.

In fact, 22 Liberal Democrats were ennobled, nine in 2000, five in 2001 (the Dissolution Honours List) and eight more in 2004. The 2000 list included seven from the list, Jamie, Earl of Mar and Kellie (a recycled hereditary who returned as Baron Erskine of Alloa Tower) and John Roper (who now sits as a non-aligned peer due to his current role as the Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees).

The 2001 list, Paddy Ashdown, Ronnie Fearn, Richard Livsey, Robert Maclennan and Rae Michie, was limited to retiring MPs, and so falls outside the scope of the list.

It was the 2004 cohort where the list began to be overlooked. David Alliance, Hugh Dykes, Kishwer Falkner, Tim Garden, Julia Neuberger and Ian Vallance were, admittedly the sort of candidates who, for various reasons, were unlikely to have contested the 1999 election, and it would have to be said that most of them had made significant contributions to society that might have caused them to be ennobled anyway. There were two more drawn from the list though - Roger Roberts and Jane Bonham-Carter - just in time to be able to avoid having to contest another election.

So, seventeen peerages granted, nine from the list. But then, it was time to elect a new, slightly shorter list...