Jo Swinson
Jo Swinson (born 5 February 1980) is the Scottish born leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats Party. Think of a stern, no-nonsense primary school teacher and a farmer's daughter to get an understanding of her political/social appeal (if any) to an electorate. She is the party's first female leader and their third in five years.
She became leader of the Liberal Democrats in July 2019, succeeding Vince Cable as their leader. Jo Swinson is anti-Brexit, anti-Jeremy Corbyn (leader of the Labour Party) and would like to smack Prime Minister Boris Johnson's bottom for making a mess with his finger painting class. She comes across television as a forceful personality, if somewhat scary as well.
Early Years[edit]
Swinson became an MP in 2005 whilst still sorting out her best political look. She was an enthusiastic Liberal, joining the party in 1997. Identifying as an 'anti-sandals' liberal, Swinson's natural home was on the right of the party and prospered when Nick Clegg became leader in 2006. In 2010 when the Liberal Democrats joined David Cameron's Conservative Party coalition government, Swinson strongly supported the decision and eventually gained political office in 2012. She was considered then to be a rising star in the party but lost her seat to the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the 2015 General Election.
In the two years she was away from parliament, Swinson wrote a book or two and became a mum. It seemed she would have to wait for another go in politics but Theresa May's attempt to secure her position with another General Election in 2017 went wrong. The upshot is Swinson regained her seat from the SNP. The Liberal Democrats were still only a tiny parliamentary party but she easily stood out and became their Deputy Leader without a contest.
Fracking and Brexit[edit]
In amongst her ins-outs of parliament, Jo Swinson became a supporter of Fracking. She took a lobbying job with one particular company to extol the wonders of having someone dig a big deep hole in your garden and setting off an explosion. Since Britain is so small compared to say USA and Canada, an earthquake creating process shook most of Lancashire when it was last undertaken. Swinson supported fracking until increasingly bad publicity encouraged her step away. It was easier to start a family than defend fracking.
The Liberal Democrats energy policies have always veered around from being more 'Greeny' than the 'Greens' to going full on extraction business to get the votes of soft Conservatives. However, there was a new cause to find recruits. The Liberal Democrats would go for the anti-Breixit vote, those who had compromised 48% of the Remainers. It had the advantage that the main parties were split on this. The Liberal Democrats (bar a few eccentrics) were fully committed to become the anti-Brexit party. They also had the advantage that Swinson was a plausible champion of a more pro-Europe mood amongst younger voters.
Leader[edit]
In 2019 the then party leader Vince Cable finally decided to hand over to a 'young 'un'. The Liberal Democrats had received a poll boost and came second in the elections to the European Union, beating for the first time in over 100 years the Conservative and Labour votes. True, the Brexit Party had won in the number of seats and percentage vote but the Liberal Democrats had done very well. It was time to double/triple down. Not only would they fight the 2016 referendum result and reverse it, they would actually rule that election out of order on the grounds that it was a skewered result cooked up by Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. With Nigel Farage as the peppery condiment added into the mix.
General Election 2019[edit]
In November 2019 Jo Swinson helped to engineer a new General Election. Her party supported Boris Johnson's decision to dissolve parliament. Swinson's hope this will be Brexit 2: Revenge of the Liberals. December 2019 will see if that was a great bit of politicking or a quick journey back to obscurity.
In the event, Swinson lost her seat and resigned. No more bold coloured dresses on TV.