14/05/2010

LORD HATTERSLEY was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party for nine years until 1992 and a minister in the late 1970s. As he wrote last year, “hung parliaments are the death of government: I should know, I was a minister in one”. He predicted that, “after May, a minority government that wants Lib Dem support will have to adopt policies Nick Clegg forces on it. Governments that accept public humiliation do not last long”. On Tuesday this week, he declared his support for the younger Miliband brother in the battle for the Labour leadership: Ed, he felt, was, “the man who can remedy New Labour's failure”. Roy’s own political career in the House of Commons spanned 33 years before he stood down as MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook in 1997. The same year he was created a life peer. He served in the governments of two Labour Prime Ministers: as a minister under Harold Wilson and in the Cabinet of James Callaghan. His prolific writing includes newspaper columns, novels, political memoirs and biography. After 15 years together, his beloved dog, Buster, died towards the end of last year. “Nothing”, wrote Roy, “has ever caused me as much pain”.

CAROLINE LUCAS is leader of the Green Party and was elected MP for Brighton Pavilion last week, taking the seat from Labour with a majority of 1,250. She is her party’s first ever MP. That night she declared, “After the recession, after people’s faith in politics has been trampled into the mud after the expenses scandal, it was not the best time to ask people to take a risk and put their faith in politics, but that is what the people of Brighton Pavilion have done. The word historic fits the bill.” Earlier this week, when a Lab/Lib pact was still a possibility, she said that the Greens had more in common with Labour “but I wouldn't agree with it being called a progressive alliance. What we want to do is look at things on a case by case basis." She was voted Politician of the Year in the Observer Ethical Awards 2007, and was also named as one of the Guardian’s ‘Top 50 eco heroes’ in January 2008. She was elected as one of the Green Party’s first British MEPs in 1999, and won one of the South East regional seats under the system of proportional representation.

DOUGLAS HURD is a former Conservative Cabinet Minister and writer. He was private secretary to Edward Heath (as leader of the opposition and as Prime Minister), and MP for first mid-Oxfordshire and then Witney between 1974 and 1997. He served Margaret Thatcher as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary. John Major kept him on as Foreign Secretary after Hurd had failed in his attempt to win the party leadership in 1990 and he stood down from the Cabinet in 1995. He was made a Peer in 1997. As an author he has written thrillers and in 2002 his autobiography, Memoirs. His acclaimed biography of Robert Peel was published in 2007 and this year, with Edward Young, he published a history of Foreign Secretaries, Choose Your Weapons. In it he tells how the rivalry between the Foreign and War Secretaries led to a duel between Canning and Castlereagh, neither of whom thought the other was up to the job of conducting the war against Napoleon.

SIMON HUGHES was the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Energy and Climate Change until the election. His opposition to the building of new nuclear power stations is clear: "A new generation of nuclear power stations will be a colossal mistake, regardless of where they are built. They are hugely expensive, dangerous and will take too long to build." But he says he is thrilled with the formation of the coalition: “This is the best available outcome for liberalism and for the country given last week's result.” Hughes was the President of the Party from 2004 to 2008. He stood for the party’s leadership in the contest that saw Sir Menzies Campbell elected, but failed to make it past the first round. It was the second time he had bid for the leadership; he had previously stood against Charles Kennedy, pledging to change the party’s “nice” image. In 2004 he was the Lib Dems’ candidate for Major of London. A barrister by profession, he first won his parliamentary seat of Southwark North and Bermondsey in a bitterly fought by-election against Peter Tatchell in 1983.