The EU in a Nutshell

Dr Lee Rotherham is a Research Fellow at The TaxPayers' Alliance and one of the country's leading experts on the European Union. Having worked as the researcher to Sir Richard Body and the "Westminster Group of Eight" Eurorebels who lost the whip under John Major's government, in the wake of the 1997 election he was taken on as a Political Advisor to three successive Shadow Foreign Secretaries and their Europe spokesmen. Part-based in Brussels, he coordinated a heroically small and nebulous team that provided the basis for a surprising majority of Britain's media stories on EU proposals at the time - and a spur to spotlighted British MEPs to change the way they had been intending to vote... During the Convention on the Future of Europe, Dr Rotherham was the advisor and press officer to David Heathcoat-Amory - the Conservative MP delegated to the body drafting the EU Constitution. This placed him alongside the handful of delegates that fought a guerilla campaign against further integration. Since then, in addition to work in heritage, in Whitehall, and alongside a children's charity, he has been widely published, most notably as co-author with Matthew Elliott of the best-selling Bumper Books of Government Waste (Harriman House) which set the current political agenda on ending public sector profligacy. He has twice stood as a parliamentary candidate, most colourfully in 2001 in his native St Helens against Shaun Woodward, unleashing a growing platoon of butlers on the nation's TV screens, in addition to the (marginally exaggerated) press reports of him driving across town on election day in an armoured vehicle. He further stood for selection for the primaries to select the Conservative candidate for London Mayor on a heretical platform of cutting pointless budgets and handing power down to councillors. During the 2011 referendum campaign on the Alternative Vote system, Dr Rotherham was head of opposition research in the successful No2AV team. A Territorial Army Reservist, he has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and recently at NATO HQ covering the Libya crisis. His long interest in European languages has left him with an unusual music collection from Sopa de Cabra to Ligabue via Estonian rave, which he is keen to inflict upon passengers while driving.