On July 2nd the new chair of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel took up their post. Lord Ribeiro, who was between 2005 and 2008 President of the Royal College of Surgeons, is, as a top doctor, an obvious appointment. If you want someone to do something ‘independent’ then it’s obviously totally within the meaning of that word to go to a top doctor.
But look again. This is the same Lord Ribeiro who became a member of the House of Lords in December 2010 and has, since then, taken the Conservative Whip. Whether he was one before he took up his seat in the Lords on 21 December 2010, he has, since that date, been a publicly committed Conservative.
