Lynne Featherstone

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Lynne Featherstone
Lynne Featherstone
Incumbent
Assumed office 
2 July 2007
Leader Nick Clegg
Preceded by Susan Kramer
Member of Parliament
for Hornsey and Wood Green
Incumbent
Assumed office 
5 May 2005
Preceded by Barbara Roche
Majority 20,512 (45.3%)
Member of the London Assembly
for the Liberal Democrats (London-wide)
In office
4 May 2000 – 6 June 2005
Preceded by New constituency
Succeeded by Geoff Pope
Born 20 December 1951 (1951-12-20) (age 56)
Stoke Newington, England
Nationality British
Political party Liberal Democrats
Alma mater Oxford Brookes University

Lynne Choona Featherstone (born Lynne Choona Ryness) December 20, 1951), is a British politician, being the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Hornsey and Wood Green.

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[edit] Early life

She was born and brought up in North London and educated at the Highgate Primary School, the independent South Hampstead High School on Maresfield Gardens and gained a Diploma in Communication and Design at Oxford Brookes University. She has lived in the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency for over thirty years. Her family's wealth is generated from a family business started by her parents - the Ryness chain of hardware and electrical shops in London. She lives in Highgate on the western side of the constituency. She is from a Jewish background.

[edit] Councillor of London Borough of Haringey 1998-2006

She was elected as a councillor in the London Borough of Haringey in 1998 for Muswell Hill ward. She and her two colleagues (June Andersen and Julia Glenn) were the first three Liberal Democrat councillors to be elected in the borough. She was leader of Liberal Democrat Group (and thereby Leader of the Opposition) on the council 1998-2002.

She stood down from Haringey Council at the May 2006 elections. She played a substantial role in the May 2006 election campaign in Haringey where Labour's majority was cut from 25 to 3, with 30 Labour councillors elected to 27 Liberal Democrats.

[edit] Member of the London Assembly 2000-2005

From 2000 until 2005, when she stood down, Featherstone was a member of the London Assembly. She was replaced as a member of the London Assembly by Geoff Pope. In 2005, a speech she made pointing out that local councillors receive an allowance which they could use to free up time to do council work by hiring domestic cleaners and babysitters was used against her by opponents. A transcript of this speech was reported in the Evening Standard newspaper.

Featherstone was promoted by some as a potential Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London in the 2008 election. In response to a poll on the Liberal Democrat Voice website, she ruled herself out, stating that, of the other people in the poll, she would back Brian Paddick.[1]

[edit] Member of Parliament

Lynne Featherstone first contested the Hornsey and Wood Green seat at the 1997 General Election where she finished in third place some 25,998 votes behind the winner Barbara Roche. She again fought Hornsey and Wood Green at the 2001 General Election, moving into second place and reducing Roche's majority to 10,614. In one of the largest swings at the 2005 General Election, Featherstone ousted Roche with a majority of 2,395 votes.

She made her maiden speech in Parliament on May 24, 2005 [2]. She was appointed as a junior home affairs spokesperson by Charles Kennedy in 2005, and to the environment audit select committee. She was co-chair of Chris Huhne's unsuccessful campaign to be leader of the Liberal Democrats following the resignation of Kennedy in January 2006. In March, following the election of Menzies Campbell as party leader, she was promoted to number two in the Liberal Democrat home affairs team and made London spokesperson. In December 2006, she succeeded Susan Kramer as the Liberal Democrat Shadow International Development Secretary, and two months later was succeeded by Tom Brake as London spokesperson.

In 2007, following the resignation of Menzies Campbell, she again chaired Chris Huhne's leadership election campaign. On 20 December 2007 the new Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who defeated Chris Huhne, made her Youth and Equalities spokesperson.

[edit] Polls and awards

In 2006, she was shortlisted in the "Rising Stars" category of the Channel 4 political awards, but did not win. She has also been nominated for the prestigious Dods "Woman Of The Year" award.

At the Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton in 2006, she was named by the Sun as one of 5 "Lib Dem lovelies" [3], and in a 2007 Sky News poll she was named 7th most fanciable MP in the UK.[4]

[edit] Views on Wikipedia

In early 2008, Lynne Featherstone expressed views at the apparent limitations of Wikipedia. Posting on her blog [5], she made two specific criticims of the encyclopaedia. First, she asked: "can you really get at some sort of impartial truth that will be agreed on by everyone by simply compiling more and more facts and edits?" - arguing that "rather than letting the diversity of different views flourish, it tries to straitjacket them into one homogenised account". Secondly, an 'aesthetic' objection, suggesting "there is not just beauty but also information and understanding to be found in carefully crafted words that reach standards of artistry beyond the mere humdrum accumulation of factual edits."[6]

[edit] External links

[edit] Video clips

[edit] News items

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Barbara Roche		 Member of Parliament for Hornsey and Wood Green
2005 – present		 Incumbent
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