Party Leadership
The Libertarian Party's main executive is its National Co-ordinating Committee (NCC). All NCC posts—including that of Party Leader—are held for a term of one year. NCC members may seek re-election to remain in post on an annual rolling basis. Election of all Party Officers is undertaken in accordance with the Party's Constitution, and occurs at the Party's Annual General Meeting (AGM).
The current NCC will remain in place until the Party's initial AGM, which will be held later in 2008.
Patrick Vessey
Party Leader
With a background in IT infrastructure management positions, Patrick brings leadership, financial and project management skills to the Party. In a career spanning over 20 years, he has held posts both within the public (Local Authority and NHS), and the private sectors; the latter including senior positions within blue-chip multi-nationals such as Dell and DSG International. He has also assisted in establishing several entrepreneurial Internet start-up companies, and has provided independent consultancy services to a number of organisations. Patrick lives in Lincolnshire, with his partner and their five year old daughter.
Andrew Withers
Campaigns Director
Andrew (51) lives with his partner and sixteen year old son in Somerset. Having gained an Honours Degree in Politics and History through part time study in his twenties and whilst running his own business, he is about to start an MA in early Modern History. Andrew has a further son, who is currently studying Politics in Newcastle.
Andrew has worked in the construction industry for over thirty years, latterly at Director level, initially for a company exporting heavy earthmoving equipment to the middle and far east. He currently heads up a housing and construction division for a Plc in Southern Africa.
Extensive travel in these regions of the world has underlined to Andrew that we live in a country that has achieved its freedoms through the hard work, and sometimes blood, of its citizens over the centuries. Keenly aware that it would be all too easy to give these freedoms away to a political elite that uses the State to support itself, Andrew's enthusiasm to prevent this from passing lends much needed zeal to his role as Party Chairman.
Tim Carpenter
Head of Policy
Originally from London, Tim lived and worked for over a decade in two somewhat minarchist countries - Singapore and Hong Kong. The contrast between the authoritarian and laissez-faire approaches adopted by these counties made a lasting impression on Tim, with laissez-faire winning hands down. He has also worked in New York and Shanghai.
Tim has experience in Financial Markets, Operations, Technology, front line Sales, Marketing and Geodesy and has founded his own company. Tim continues to be a partner in an international boutique consultancy.
Upon his return to the UK in 2002, Tim noted a creeping infantilisation and that our freedoms, won at great or the ultimate personal cost by our forebears, being systematically and intentionally dismantled. He finds this unacceptable.
Tim is married and recently became a father.
Chris Mounsey
Director of Communications
Born in London in 1977, raised in Kent and educated at Eton, Chris moved to study microbiology at the University of Edinburgh in 1996. After a couple of years, Chris decided that he preferred graphic design and so he dropped out and got a job in a small Edinburgh printhouse. Ten years, various jobs and one big move later, he is now a web and print designer living in South London and working in Ockham (of razor fame).
Chris is best known, in political circles, as the irascible author of the three-year-old Devil's Kitchen, a sweary but respected libertarian political weblog.
Chris's contributions to the Libertarian Party are mainly in the fields of design and media relations. He also maintains a keen interest in science and concentrates much of his attention on viral pathogens and new power technologies, such as wave generators, solar cells, zinc oxide powerstations and nuclear fusion.
Chris is aiming to score 100% for Integrity in next edition of the Taxpayers' Alliance Political Top Trumps.
Simon Clark
NCC Member
The youngest member of the NCC and currently on a gap year prior to studying Economics & Politics at Exeter University, Simon brings youth and vigour to the Party. He believes that whilst his generation might be growing up in a Britain that is, in many ways, more statist than that of their parents, it also has the potential to be the generation that brings liberty to the British people. Simon has experience in graphic design, administration and copy writing. His increasingly popular weblog, From the Barrel of a Gun, has been featured by The Daily Telegraph and represents his stalwart support for freedom from the arbitrary will of others, exerted at the barrel of a gun.