- published: 20 Feb 2013
- views: 17916
Sharon Margaret Bowles, Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (born 12 June 1953, Oxford) is a Liberal Democrat politician. She was a Member of the European Parliament for the South East England region of the United Kingdom from 2005 to 2014. She sat in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe grouping. She was educated at the independent Our Lady's Abingdon, the University of Reading and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
Bowles has been described as the most influential Briton in the development of European Union policy, and also as one of the top ten most influential regulators in the European Union, and most influential woman. She was short-listed to be Governor of the Bank of England in 2012.
On 15 August 2014 she became a non executive director of The London Stock Exchange Group PLC and of its subsidiary The London Stock Exchange plc.
She was nominated for a life peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours and was created Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted, of Bourne End in the County of Hertfordshire, on 23 October 2015.
Nigel Paul Farage (/ˈfærɑːʒ/; born 3 April 1964) is a British politician and former commodity broker. He is the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), having held the position since November 2010, and previously from September 2006 to November 2009. Since 1999 he has been a Member of the European Parliament for South East England. He co-chairs the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (formerly "Europe of Freedom and Democracy") group. He has been noted for his sometimes controversial speeches in the European Parliament and has strongly criticised the euro.
Farage was a founding member of UKIP, having left the Conservative Party in 1992 after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. After unsuccessfully campaigning in European and Westminster parliamentary elections for UKIP since 1994, he was elected MEP for South East England in the 1999 European Parliament Election. He was subsequently re-elected in 2004, 2009 and, most recently, at the 2014 European Parliament Election.