@ListeningQuietly
Julian Lewis is an interesting character
but he is most definitely not stupid
if he decides that the Russia report highlights weaknesses in UK security it will get published no matter what Cummings tries to do
{snigger}
He is an interesting character.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Lewis
A Eurosceptic, Lewis is a supporter of the groups Leave Means Leave and the European Research Group (ERG).[2] Lewis served as Chair of the Defence Select Committee from 2015 to 2019. He actively pursues the retention and renewal of the British strategic nuclear deterrent, the UK Trident programme – confirmed in 2016 – and campaigns for Defence expenditure to be restored to 3% of GDP.
Lewis is the only Member of Parliament who does not allow his constituents to contact him by email. In a letter in the Guardian, he stated: "Letters, phone calls, and, where appropriate, surgery appointments are perfectly adequate for people who genuinely need my help, as the many letters of thanks quoted on my website fully confirm. Only mass, manipulative campaigners and obsessive individuals find this a problem – and so they should!"
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From 1976 until early 1978, with secret funding from The Freedom Association, he posed as a Labour Party moderate and briefly won control of Newham North East Constituency Labour Party, in an eventually unsuccessful attempt to reverse the deselection of the sitting MP, Reg Prentice, and in order to highlight Militant Tendency entryism in the Labour Party.
and
With the creation of the Liberal-Conservative Coalition as a result of the election of a hung parliament in 2010, the post which he had shadowed (Minister for the Armed Forces) was allocated to the Liberal Democrat Defence spokesman, Nick Harvey MP. Lewis was appointed as a member of Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee in September 2010.
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He was elected as a member of the Defence Select Committee at a by-election in October 2014, whilst remaining on the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.
In June 2015, he was elected to the Chair of the Commons Defence Select Committee by 314 votes to 242, and in July 2017 he was re-elected to this position, in the new Parliament, by 305 votes to 265. Having supervised more than 30 Inquiries, during the 2015-17 and 2017-19 Parliaments, Lewis made it known in January 2020 that he would not seek re-election to chair the Defence Committee for a third time, as "It is better to stop while people wish you to carry on, than to carry on until people wish you to stop!"
and
In October 2009, Martin Bell OBE, author of the investigative study A Very British Revolution: The Expenses Scandal and How to Save our Democracy, wrote to Lewis stating: "It is my view that in your expenses claims you have acted throughout with absolute propriety – and you may feel free to quote this judgement … Unlike certain others, you come out of the episode of MPs' expenses as a rather admirable character."
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In January and March 2019, he was one of only 28 Conservative Eurosceptic MPs – the so-called 'Spartans'[67] – to vote against Theresa May's EU Withdrawal Agreement in all three divisions in the House of Commons, because "Brexit should mean Brexit and no deal is better than this bad deal"
Looking through his bio, its very hard to put him into a box. His views at times are very right wing, but at other times he goes completely the other way and has shown some really liberal views too.
He seems to have a certain degree of that rare quality within Westminister: Integrity. I don't disagree with him on a lot of things, but he seems to be very different to some of those I might mention on all sides of the house.
This could be interesting.
His background in Defence is something that definitely has got my interest...