Katie Lam

Katie Jane Lotte Lam (born August 1991)^{[citation needed]} is a British Conservative politician who has been Member of Parliament for Weald of Kent and Opposition Assistant Whip since 2024.

Lam's paternal grandfather's family is of Dutch Jewish descent and her paternal grandmother's family were from Germany and included a left-wing senator representing Saxony. Her grandmother's family moved as refugees to England to escape political persecution. Most of her grandfather's family was killed in the Holocaust. Her father's parents met while delivering leaflets for the Labour Party in the 1940s.

Lam was educated at her local comprehensive, Guildford County School, where she was head girl. The school did not teach Latin or Greek, so she learned those independently, going on to study classics at Trinity College, Cambridge.

While at Cambridge she was elected president of the Cambridge Union and chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association. As president of the Union she was criticised by women's groups for inviting Dominique Strauss-Kahn after he had resigned after being accused of sexual assault. She defended the decision saying "He hasn't been found guilty of anything and it's not up to us to judge him".

After graduation, Lam worked at Goldman Sachs for six years.

She became a special adviser to Boris Johnson in 2019 after meeting Andrew Griffith at the Conservative Party conference. Working as Johnson's deputy Chief of Staff she became known for her work ethic and regularly slept at her desk during the COVID-19 pandemic. She left the Johnson administration in early 2021 after an incident where Carrie Johnson's dog, Dilyn was about to urinate on Lam's handbag and Lam had to intervene. She joined PR company Portland Communications as chief policy adviser in September 2021 and then worked as chief of staff at AI company Faculty. She then worked on Rishi Sunak's first leadership campaign. She was also a special advisor to Suella Braverman and Alok Sharma. Whilst working for Braverman, she had a primary focus on national security, was a Brexit supporter and was known for supporting the UK leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.

Lam was selected in the safe seat of Weald of Kent in September 2023 ahead of the 2024 election. She gained the seat with 39.8 % of the vote, a majority of 8422, but a fall of 32 share points on 2019.

In the 2024 Conservative Party leadership election, she supported Robert Jenrick. Kemi Badenoch appointed her as a junior whip in the government. She was later appointed as Home Office shadow minister. According to The Guardian in 2025 she is a "disciple" of Dominic Cummings and a "rising star" in the Conservative Party, tipped as a future leader. At the Margaret Thatcher Conference, held in March 2025, Lam said that the Conservative Party should end its "obsession" with Thatcher, saying that while Thatcher "correctly diagnosed" issues about the state of the world, it does not "help or serve" the party in 2025.