MP Clifton-Brown wins a promotion (From Tewkesbury Admag)

MP Clifton-Brown wins a promotion

COTSWOLD MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has been promoted to David Cameron's new front bench team.

Mr Clifton-Brown, who was previously assistant chief whip, has been made shadow Foreign Affairs minister working alongside Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague.

In making the appointment, David Cameron said: "I am delighted that Geoffrey Clifton-Brown will be joining the foreign affairs team. It is so important that the Conservatives set out a clear and strong foreign policy agenda, especially with so much happening on the world stage and he will have a crucial role in William Hague's team."

Mr Clifton-Brown said: "I am delighted to have been offered this important job working with William Hague, especially as he has now returned to the front bench in such a high profile post. I shall of course continue to serve all my constituents as assiduously as I have done in the past."

He told the Journal that he and Mr Hague were "old friends", who have known each other since the late 1980s, when he was shortlisted to stand in the Yorkshire constituency that Mr Hague went on to win.

He said that there were four members of the foreign affairs team and it was possible that he would be given the brief for South East Asia, Australasia and North and South America.

Of the major foreign policy issues facing the country, Mr Clifton-Brown said that he was not in favour of giving a deadline for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq but said he was personally in favour of having certain goals for the training of the Iraqi Army and police that would allow the gradual withdrawal of troops.

On Europe, he described the British presidency of the EU as "incredibly weak and negative".

"It was an opportunity to make a better use of the budget," he added.

He said he was very opposed to a European constitution, which implied a European state.