Nigel Paul Farage ( /ˈfærɑːʒ/, FARR-ahzh; born 3 April 1964, Farnborough, Kent), is a British politician and is the Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a position he also held from September 2006 to November 2009. He is a Member of the European Parliament for South East England and co-chairs the Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy group.
Farage is a founding member of the UKIP, having left the Conservative Party in 1992 after they signed the Maastricht Treaty. Having unsuccessfully campaigned in European and Westminster parliamentary elections for UKIP since 1994, he gained a seat as an MEP for South East England in the 1999 European Parliament Election — the first year the regional list system was used — and was re-elected in 2004 and 2009. Farage describes himself as a libertarian and rejects the notion that he is a conservative.
In September 2006, Farage became the UKIP Leader and led the party through the 2009 European Parliament Election in which it received the second highest share of the popular vote, defeating Labour and the Liberal Democrats with over two million votes. However he stepped down in November 2009 to concentrate on contesting the Speaker John Bercow's seat of Buckingham in the 2010 general election.
Edward Samuel Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British Labour Party politician, currently the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the South Yorkshire constituency of Doncaster North since 2005 and served in the Cabinet from 2007 to 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He and his brother, David Miliband, were the first siblings to sit in the Cabinet simultaneously since Edward, Lord Stanley, and Oliver Stanley in 1938.
Born in London, Miliband graduated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford and the London School of Economics, becoming first a television journalist and then a Labour Party researcher, before rising to become one of Chancellor Gordon Brown's confidants and Chairman of HM Treasury's Council of Economic Advisers.
As Prime Minister, Gordon Brown appointed Miliband as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on 28 June 2007. He was subsequently promoted to the new post of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, a position he held from 3 October 2008 to 11 May 2010. On 25 September 2010, he was elected Leader of the Labour Party.
Nicholas William Peter "Nick" Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is the British Liberal Democrat Leader since 2007 and currently the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord President of the Council (with special responsibility for political and constitutional reform) in the coalition government of which David Cameron is the Prime Minister. Clegg has been the Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2007, and a Member of Parliament (MP) representing Sheffield Hallam since 2005. He was previously a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and an award winning journalist for the Financial Times.
Clegg was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election and became the Liberal Democrats' Home Affairs spokesperson in 2006. Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister following the 2010 general election, when the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government with the Conservative Party. As well as his parliamentary roles, Clegg has contributed to many pamphlets and books on political issues. He has also had a large number of jobs, including being a skiing instructor and working in the office of a bank in Helsinki.
Andrew Ferguson Neil (born 21 May 1949) is a Scottish journalist and broadcaster.
He currently works for the BBC, presenting the live political programmes The Daily Politics on BBC Two, The Sunday Politics on BBC One and This Week on BBC One. For the BBC he also anchors Straight Talk with Andrew Neil and makes documentaries.
He is also Chairman of Spectator Magazines; Chairman of ITP Magazines (Dubai); and Chairman of World Media Rights (London).
Neil made his name at The Sunday Times where he was editor for 11 years. In 1995 he was made editor-in-chief of the Press Holdings group of newspapers, owner of The Business and (from 2005) The Spectator, moving up to become chairman in July 2008.
Neil was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire. He grew up in the Glenburn area, and attended the local Lancraigs Primary School. Aged 11, Neil passed his 11-plus examinations and sent to the then academically selective Paisley Grammar School. His father was a professional soldier who had worked his way up through the ranks; his mother worked in the local cotton mills.[citation needed]