A Versatile Politician: Lord Tope - Guest Speaker at Dinner for Leading Lib Dem Councillors.

The guest speaker at a dinner in the University of Bedford last Friday organised by the Local Government Organisation for leading Liberal Democrat councillors was Councillor the Lord Tope - an unusual title to put on any business card. But if a "polymath" is a person who has a grasp of many different academic subjects, the Baron Tope just has to be a "polypolitician"!

Graham Tope spoke mainly about his experiences as a local Liberal Democrat councillor in the London Borough of Sutton, setting out the opportunities as well as the difficulties in campaigning at the present time. Apart from being a councillor in Sutton and, obviously, a member of the House of Lords, he had also in his youth been, briefly, an MP. In 1972, he won the seat of Sutton and Cheam at a parliamentary by-election as a member of the Liberal Party. However, the Conservatives retook the seat at the succeeding general election in February 1974.

He was made a life peer as Baron Tope, of Sutton in 1994. He is a member of the Committee of the Regions of the European Union and is the only person in the country to have served as a member of a European Institution, a member of the UK Parliament, a member of a regional government structure and as a borough councillor all at the same time.

He was also the leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on the London Assembly until 2006, a member of the Audit Panel, and member of the Transport Committee. He has also been a member of the Metropolitan police Authority, which oversees the Metropolitan Police.

Nowadays the majority of his time is taken up either in the House of Lords or as a councillor in Sutton. A seasoned campaigner in grassroots politics he clearly relishes his activity at both ends of the spectrum simultaneously and had a great deal of interesting advice for his audience.