Mormon Times blogmistress Emily W. Jensen has revealed that one of the newest members of Parliament in the United Kingdom is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. David Rutley has been elected as a Conservative to represent the Macclesfield constituency in the House of Commons, which is the lower house (the House of Lords is the higher house). Macclesfield is in the Midlands, just south of the Labour stronghold of Manchester.
According to the official numbers published by the BBC, Rutley won his election rather handily:
-- David Rutley (Conservative): 23,503 votes, 47.0 percent
-- Roger Barlow (Liberal Democrat): 11,544 votes, 23.1 percent
-- Adrian Heald (Labour): 10,164 votes, 20.3 percent
-- Brendan Murphy (Macclesfield Independent): 2,590 votes, 5.2 percent
-- Jacqueline Smith (UK Independence Party): 1,418 votes, 2.8 percent
-- John Knight (Green): 840 votes, 1.7 percent
Nationally, the Conservatives picked up the greatest number of seats, but their total of 306 is 20 short of the 326 necessary for the Conservatives to govern outright and for their leader, David Cameron, to immediately become Prime Minister. So the Conservatives at present are attempting to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. If interested, you can view a political history of the House of Commons since 1885 HERE.
David Rutley is an experienced businessman, with an active family life. His wife, Rachel, is a physiotherapist and they have four young children - two boys and two girls. He believes that Parliament needs more people with “real world” experience. He has spent most of his career in business and has been a senior executive in companies like Asda (where he ran the Home Shopping and E-commerce business) and PepsiCo International, and, in recent years, Halifax General Insurance and Barclays. Matthew Brown provides some local commentary on Rutley HERE.
Rutley has also worked as a Special Adviser in the last Conservative Government at the Treasury, the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Agriculture. During this time, David helped shape the Budget and initiated the first ever White Paper for rural England. He was also a Parliamentary Candidate in St Albans. David is committed to using this experience to fight for local businesses, to revitalise Macclesfield’s town centre, to tackle traffic congestion in areas like Poynton and Disley, and to keep health care local at Macclesfield Hospital. While he dows not discuss his religion on his website, on October 28th, 2009, Rutley told the Macclesfield Express "It is important people have values in public life and my priority is going to be representing people of Macclesfield regardless of their religious views."
As of the close of 2009, the LDS Church had 186,082 members scattered amongst 336 congregations in the United Kingdom. The U.K. has two temples, in London and Preston. The LDS Church also runs a dedicated U.K. Newsroom website HERE.
1 comment:
As a defeated candidate in the Maclesfield election, I congratulate David Rutley on his election with nearly 50% of the vote. He is a thoroughly decent man with a lovely family - an excellent role model. However, you refer to his employment history without mentioning his latest employment as a Director of Barclays Bank. He never disclosed that fact in any of his election leaflets and that omission remains a mystery, when openness was a key element in his offer to the electorate.
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