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'Peter Bruce Lilley' (born 23 August 1943, Hayes, Kent, England, educated at Dulwich College and Clare College, Cambridge) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been a Member of Parliament MP since 1983. He currently represents the constituency of Hitchin and Harpenden and, prior to boundary changes, represented St Albans which was its predecessor seat.

Contents

Early life

Leadership Contest

Critical Point of View

Target from Satirist

External links

Offices held

Early life

Before entering Parliament, he was an energy analyst at the City of London stockbroker, W. Greenwell & Co.. Having been selected as prospective parliamentary candidate for St. Alban's, a safe Tory seat, he became a partner in the firm. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Nigel Lawson, and Financial Secretary to the Treasury before joining the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to replace Nicholas Ridley in mid-1990 after the latter was force to resign over an anti-German gaffe. After the 1992 General Election he became Secretary of State for Social Security and the coincidence of his youthful, good looks, right wing reputation and area of departmental responsibility resulted in the satirical television show Spitting Image portraying him as an SS Officer.

Leadership Contest

He contested the Conservative Party leadership election, 1997 coming fourth in a field of five candidates. In opposition he held the post of Shadow Chancellor from 1997 - 1998 and was Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party 1998 - 1999.

Critical Point of View

In 2001 Lilley provoked some controversy in his party and Britain more widely by calling for cannabis to be legalised in a Social Market Foundation pamphlet.[1]
In 2005 Lilley produced a report for the Bow Group centre-right think tank that was highly critical of Government plans to introduce national identity cards.[2]
When David Cameron was elected leader of the Conservatives in December 2005, Lilley was appointed Chairman of the Globalisation and Global Poverty policy group, part of Cameron's extensive 18-month policy review.

Target from Satirist

Peter Lilley has twice given singing performances at Conservative Party conferences. In 1992 as Secretary of State at the DSS, he sang a riff on "I have a little list", from The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan, condemning those who unfairly claimed benefits.
Lilley's version was as follows:
"But there are scores of other frauds to tackle,
So conference in the words of the Mikado,
I've got a little list,
Of benefit offenders who I'll soon be routing out,
And who never would be missed,
They never would be missed!,
There's those who claim in a dozen names,
And councillors who claim the dole to run left wing campaigns,
I've got them on my list,
There's young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue,
And dads who won't support the kids of the ladies they have..... kissed,
And I haven't even mentioned all those scrounging Socialists,
I've got them on my list,
And none of them would be missed,
No none of them would be missed!"
In 1998, he changed the words of "Land of Hope and Glory", singing "Land of Chattering Classes", in condemnation of the apparent abandonment of British values and history by Tony Blair's New Labour.
During the Third series of Drop The Dead Donkey he was continually ridiculed for being the "Slimey bastard" of the week.

External links

★ The Rt Hon Peter Lilley MP official site

★ ePolitix.com - Peter Lilley

★ Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Peter Lilley MP

★ TheyWorkForYou.com - Peter Lilley MP

★ The Public Whip - Peter Lilley MP

★ BBC News - Peter Lilley profile 22 October, 2002

★ BBC article about Lilley's legalise cannabis proposal 6 July, 2001

★ Lilley speaks about his work as Chair of the Globalisation and Global Poverty policy group Clare Politics

Offices held