Graham, Tom and Ian

Your Lib Dem team for Cheadle West & Gatley Learn more

Mark Hunter MP stands down as Deputy Chief Whip

by Lib Dem team on 14 October, 2014

Mark Hunter MPCheadle MP Mark Hunter has stepped down as Lib Dem Deputy Chief Whip after four and a half years to spend more time on his constituency work.

In his resignation letter, Mark said

It has been a privilege to serve for four and a half years as a member of the coalition government and I remain proud of our achievements over that period. We have faced many difficult decisions as a party but I believe it was the right choice, in the circumstances, to form the coalition and provide the political stability necessary for economic recovery to take place.

As you know, it was never my intention to serve in the same post for the duration of the Parliament and now seems a sensible time to move on. As we reach the end of the conference season and return to Westminster this is an appropriate moment to announce my decision.

My first priority is, and always will be, to serve my constituents to the best of my ability and I intend to carry on doing just that for as long as I am able.

It has been an honour to serve and I thank you for the opportunity.

As with all the best Whips, Mark’s work as a member of the Government has been largely in the background.

He has played a key role in delivering many of the Lib Dem’s key achievements in Government including cutting income tax for millions, the pupil premium, the massive growth in apprenticeships and the fairer tax system which has seen the richest pay more and the poor pay less than under the previous Labour administration.

   8 Comments

8 Responses

  1. Robert Taggart says:

    Guess he worried about his other ‘job’ – that of ‘Commoner’ for this area – come May ’15 !

  2. John Hartley says:

    Good to see that Mark voted in favour of yesterday’s motion to recognise Palestinian statehood, along with an overwhelming number of other MPs voting. This is a long overdue decision by Parliament. It sends the right message to both Palestinians and Israelis.

  3. bruce thwaite says:

    Some other policies (that he forgot to mention) that he/LibDems have been involved in since 2010:-

    Increase in VAT to 20%
    Increase in tuition fees (despite actually signing a declaration not to)
    Biggest fall in living standards for 150 years.
    Substantial increase in zero hours contracts.
    Tax cuts for millionaires (50% to 45)
    Badly thought out bedroom tax.
    NHS top-down

  4. Iain Roberts says:

    Let’s go through those Bruce.

    – increase in VAT: true, any party in Government would have made that change in that situation.
    – increase in tuition fees: in the headline figure yes, but the reality is poorer graduates pay less under the new system than the old thanks to the Lib Dems and, as a result, more students are going to university than ever before including record numbers from poorer backgrounds. Students also pay back less each year than under the old system and the majority of students will never have to pay back the full amount.
    – living standards: very much depends how you measure it, and I’d say it isn’t true based on the most sensible measures (as opposed to the ones Labour use).
    – tax cuts for millionaires. Absolutely untrue. Yes, if you cherry-pick one particular tax you can make the case, but if you look at the total tax paid by the richest 10% it’s risen far more than anyone else’s tax (and the tax paid by the poorest has fallen compared to Labour).
    – bedroom tax: true, that one didn’t work as hoped and we’ve acknowledged that. If other councils had followed Stockport’s lead, it could have worked much better.
    – NHS: there are many debates to be had about the NHS, but the one thing I don’t think is supportable is not making any changes. In particular, the move to bring social care and health care together and merge budgets is absolutely essential.

    Sure the Lib Dems have made mistakes – show me a party that hasn’t – but with fewer than 60 MPs the party’s achieves a lot of really positive change and showed that, contrary to what most were claiming in 2010, coalition government can work.

  5. John says:

    Welcome back Mark. we’ve missed you.

  6. Alan Gent says:

    Well, I’m glad about this. I’ve written to Mark on a number of occasions and he has repeatedly said that he was unable to vote as he was whipping. Ive told him that wasn’t good enough. Constituents first, self promotion second please.

  7. bruce thwaite says:

    Iain – thanks for the reply.

    Your party make mistakes? Judging by Mark Hunter you the Arthurian knights of the round table and he is Lancelot on his white horse – fighting the blue beribboned brigade – the ‘baddies’ – the Conservatives.

    I think your (i.e. the LibDems) biggest mistake was forming the coalition with the ‘evil’, fire-breathing, infant-devouring chimera – aka the Tories. Most of your party hate them, Mr Hunter included, yet you broke bread with them.

    Why? Because you wanted the trappings of power so you sold your soul to the devil’. Forget all this nonsense about doing it for the country – you did it for the red briefcases. (Cameron is just as guilty as he realised it was his big chance to occupy number ten).

    The electorate has annihilated your party in Manchester, Rochdale and Europe. Politicians ,and Mark Hunter is a perfect example, will tell their constituency anything to get elected and that is why people like him, and in particular the LibDems, are no longer trusted.

    You to be fair, appear not to be as arrogant and conceited as Mark Hunter.

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>