Lembit Öpik

Lembit Öpik
Lib Dem Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
In office 4 July, 2007 – present
Leader	Menzies Campbell
Preceded by	Susan Kramer
Lib Dem Secretary of State for Wales and Lib Dems Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
In office 15 May 2003 – 4 July 2007
Leader	Charles Kennedy Menzies Campbell
Succeeded by	Alistair Carmichael (Secretary of State for Northern Ireland) Roger Williams (Secretary of State for Wales)
Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire
In office 2 May 1997 – present
Preceded by	Alex Carlile
Majority	15,419
Personal details
Born	(1965-03-02) March 2, 1965 Bangor, County Down Northern Ireland
Political party	Liberal Democrats

Lembit Öpik (IPA for Estonian pronunciation: ['lem.b̥it 'øpik]) (born 2 March 1965) is a British politician of Estonian descent. He is a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for the Montgomeryshire constituency. He is a former leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and is his party's Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

Early life

His parents were refugees from Estonia who settled in Northern Ireland. Lembit was born in Bangor, County Down, the son of physicist Dr Uno and Liivi Öpik and grew up there with sister Urve Öpik (born 1960, a psychotherapist) and brother Endel "Tal" Öpik (12 April 1968 - 21 November 2005 [1], a musician). His grandfather was Ernst Julius Öpik, an Estonian astronomer who worked at Armagh Observatory. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Öpik took a degree in philosophy at the University of Bristol, where he became President of University of Bristol Union, and was also on the National Union of Students National Executive Committee.

Before his election to Parliament in 1997 he was a personnel manager at Procter & Gamble Ltd. He had stood in Newcastle upon Tyne Central in the 1992 election. He was elected as a councillor on Newcastle City Council.

Member of Parliament

At the 1997 general election, the Liberal Democrat MP for Montgomeryshire, Alex Carlile, retired. Öpik was elected as his successor, with an increased majority. He retained the seat at the 2001 election and at the 2005 general election, his majority falling very slightly in 2001 but increasing again in 2005 to over 7,000 votes.[2]

To the general public he is perhaps best known for his appearances on popular entertainment TV shows like Have I Got News For You, and for concerns about the possibility of an asteroid impact on Earth. He advocates increased funding for attempts at detection, under the banner of Spaceguard.

He was also joint chair of the Middle Way Group, a cross-party parliamentary group which supported the regulation, not banning, of fox hunting. In 2001/2, he chaired an Ethics Committee overseeing production of the BBC series, The Experiment, a reproduction of the Stanford Prison Experiment. From 1999 to 2001 he was a member of the Agriculture Select Committee.

In Liberal Democrats' leadership contests, Öpik has garnered an unfortunate reputation for backing campaigns that soon collapse.

In 1999, he was one of only two of the party's 46 MPs to back the abortive leadership campaign of Don Foster. Foster abandoned his campaign before nominations even closed, and backed Charles Kennedy, the eventual winner, instead.

In September 2004 Öpik himself stood for the position of President of the Liberal Democrats, but was defeated in the ballot by Simon Hughes.

During the 2006 leadership crisis, Öpik was a fervent supporter of Kennedy and urged him to retain the leadership. In the leadership contest to replace Kennedy, Öpik became campaign manager for Mark Oaten. However, Oaten quickly withdrew from the contest, having failed to attract enough support from within the parliamentary party.

He has said he will stand for President when Simon Hughes' term ends in 2008 and that he intends to stand in the leadership contest after next.

He announced on Saturday 13 October 2007 that Öpik was to step down as leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats but will stay in his current position as MP for the Montgomeryshire constituency.

Personal life

Öpik speaks fluent Estonian, [[German lanuage|German] and English as well as learning Welsh.

He holds a pilot's licence and in 1998 he suffered a near fatal paragliding accident, breaking his back[3].

Öpik was engaged to ITV1 weather presenter Siân Lloyd, from 2002 to October 2006. The couple lived at Öpik's constituency house in Powys, and were due to marry in 2006. They met at a friend's engagement party and then later at a Westminster party where the Press meet the MPs, where they talked and she lost a ring. He found it, then lost it himself, then found it again two years later and called her - she had a spare ticket to go to the The Proms, and they started a relationship She called him "the most fascinating man I've ever met" and revealed that they enjoy sharing late night baths. They appeared on Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? on 15 April, 2006, winning £64,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association and NCH Action for Children.

In December 2006 it was revealed that the relationship had broken down, Öpik later become involved with 24-year-old Gabriela Irimia of The Cheeky Girls pop duo. During various debates in Parliament on 10 January, 2007, he was subject to much leg pulling and ribbing over his new relationship from fellow MPs.

Due to the unusual combination of letters in his name, he has been variously described as "the human anagram", "the minister for anagrams" and "the walking Scrabble hand",

Public appearances

Öpik has appeared several times on the BBC satirical current affairs quiz show Have I Got News for You. He became a member of the Spinal Injuries Association after a near-fatal paragliding accident in 1998 broke his back in 12 places. In 2006 he became President of the Motor Neurone Disease Association, following his father's death from the disease the previous year.

See also

• Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team

External links

• ePolitix.com - Lembit Öpik official site
• Lembit Opik MP profile at the site of Liberal Democrats
• Lembit Öpik MP profile at the site of Welsh Liberal Democrats
• The Parliamentary Middle Way Group
• Times Online Student Section: Lembit Opik Interview with Lembit Opik
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Lembit Opik MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Lembit Öpik MP
• The Public Whip - Lembit Öpik voting record
• Open Directory Project - Lembit Opik directory category
• BBC News - Politics: Lembit Opik profile 10 February, 2005
• Evening Standard (London); "Lembit and his Very Cheeky Family"