19/11/2010

Grade, King, Bakewell Made Working Peers

Michael Grade, Oona King, and Dame Joan Bakewell, are among those named "working peers" in the House of Lords.

Former Chief Executive of Channel 4 and Executive Chairman of ITV, Michael Grade, will become a Conservative peer, alongside Julian Fellowes, Writer and Novelist.

Fiona Shackleton, Sir Paul McCartney's Divorce Lawyer, will also be a Tory peer.

Taking the Labour benches will be Dame Joan Bakewell and Oona King, who lost her Commons seat to George Galloway in 2005.

Also included on the list are Party insiders, such as Ray Collins, Labour's General Secretary, and Stewart Wood, Mr Miliband's Campaign Chief and Gordon Brown's former Adviser.

Businessman Sir Gulam Noon, who was cleared of any wrong doing in the "cash-for-honours" row in 2005, also made the grade.

The Lib Dem list includes former MP Susan Kramer, Party's Election Chairman John Sharkey and Mike Storey, former Lord Mayor of Liverpool.

The former Head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, was nominated for a Conservative peerage but chose to be a cross-bencher.

A total of 54 people have been elevated to the Lords - 27 will be Tories, 15 Lib Dems, 10 Labour and one Plaid Cymru.

(BMcN/CD)


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