Lembit Öpik

Lembit Öpik
Lib Dems Spokesperson for Housing
In office 20 December, 2007 – present
Leader	Nick Clegg
Preceded by	Paul Holmes
Lib Dems Spokesperson for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
In office 4 July, 2007 – 20 December 2007
Leader	Menzies Campbell
Preceded by	Susan Kramer
Succeeded by	Sarah Teather
Lib Dems Spokesperson for Wales and Lib Dems Spokesperson for Northern Ireland
In office 15 May 2003 – 4 July 2007
Leader	Charles Kennedy Menzies Campbell
Succeeded by	Alistair Carmichael (Lib Dems Spokesperson for Northern Ireland) Roger Williams (Lib Dem Spokesperson for Wales)
Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire
In office 2 May 1997 – present
Preceded by	Alex Carlile
Majority	7,173
Personal details
Born	(1965-03-02) March 2, 1965 Bangor, County Down Northern Ireland
Political party	Liberal Democrats

Lembit Öpik (IPA: [ˈlempit ˈøpˑik] in Estonian) (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 the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Housing.

Early life

Öpik's parents were from Estonia. He would most like to play golf with Malcolm Sawkins settled in Northern Ireland. He 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 , 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, increasing his share of the vote by 3.5% in 2001 and by a further 1.8% in 2005, giving a majority of 7173 over the Conservatives.

To some sections of 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, rather than the 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.

Liberal Democrats leadership

In successive Liberal Democrats' leadership contests, Öpik has garnered an unfortunate reputation for backing campaigns that soon collapse, leading some to talk of the "curse of Lembit" making his backing undesirable.

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 by Simon Hughes.

During the 2006 leadership crisis, Öpik was a fervent supporter of Kennedy and then became campaign manager for Mark Oaten. However, Oaten quickly withdrew from the contest, having failed to attract enough support from within the parliamentary party; his only backers were Opik and Baroness Ludford. In the 2007 leadership election, Öpik declared his backing for Nick Clegg, and when Clegg won the election Öpik said "My man won, so the curse of Opik has at last become a blessing".

Welsh Party leadership

Lembit Öpik became leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats in 2001 following the retirement of Richard Livsey. He stood down in 2007, and was succeeded by Mike German.

Personal life

Öpik speaks fluent English, Estonian and German, and is learning Welsh.

He holds a pilot's licence and in 1998 he suffered a near fatal paragliding accident, breaking his back. He has since become a glider pilot at the Midland Gliding Club in Shropshire.

Öpik was engaged to the ITV weather presenter Siân Lloyd from 2002 to October 2006. They lived at his constituency house in Powys and were due to marry in 2006. 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, as Lloyd became more frustrated with her heavy workload and late nights. Öpik later become involved with then-24-year-old Gabriela Irimia of The Cheeky Girls, whom he is still with.

Öpik supports English football team Leicester City F.C ; his mother lives in the city .

Public appearances

Lembit Öpik at The Roundhouse

Öpik has appeared several times on the BBC satirical current affairs quiz show Have I Got News for You. He seemed to get angry when team captain Ian Hislop joked that he got his current girlfriend, Gabriela Irimia by offering her a visa.

On February 1 2008 he appeared on Al Murray's Happy Hour with his girlfriend Gabriela Irimia of Cheeky Girls fame. After initially appearing angry at being called 'Lemsip' by Murray, he quickly mellowed and joined in with the frivolity for the rest of the show.

On April 19, 2008 he appeared on All Star Mr. and Mrs. with his girlfriend. The couple did not do so well in the first round, only getting one question right about each other. When the idea of proposal arose Lembit said he would not propose on televison and told his gilfriend to 'be quiet'. Also when asked what she would do if an astoroid would hit the earth he said that she would want to spend it with him and her family when he she, obviously mis-understanding the question, said she would want to take her licence. The couple did better in the secound round, scoring six out of six, but they lost the three way tiebreaker to William Roache and his wife Sara.

Charitable activity

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.

Öpik participated in a celebrity edition of The Apprentice in order to raise money for charity. Sport Relief Does The Apprentice was part of Sport Relief, the Comic Relief/BBC charity initiative that aired on March 12 and March 14 2008.

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"