Baroness Defects Back To Tories After 20 Years As A Lib Dem

A former Conservative MP and party vice-chairman who defected to the Liberal Democrats more than 20 years ago is rejoining the Tories. Emma Nicholson, 75, a high-profile campaigner on Iraq, was awarded a peerage by Paddy Ashdown in 1997 after leaving the Conservatives in 1995. After being diagnosed as deaf at the age of 16, she was a Tory vice-chairman from 1983 to 1987, MP for Torridge and West Devon from 1987 to 1997, and an MEP from 1999 to 2009.