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Matthew Parris
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Matthew Parris
Matthew Francis Parris (born 7 August 1949) is a British political writer, broadcaster, and former politician. He served as Member of Parliament for West Derbyshire from 1979 to 1986. Ideologically a liberal conservative, he was a member of the Conservative Party, but resigned over the party's stance on Brexit.
Parris was born in South Africa to British parents. He subsequently studied at Clare College, Cambridge, and Yale University before working for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and then the Conservative Research Department. He entered parliament in 1979 and remained there until 1986, resigning to pursue a journalistic career as presenter of the television series Weekend World. After the series ended in 1988, he became a freelance columnist for The Times. Having spoken out for gay rights throughout the 1980s, in 1989 he was a founding member of the gay rights charity Stonewall.
During the 1990s, Parris' columns began being collected together for book publication and in 2002 he published his autobiography. His political column proved influential, described as being widely regarded as essential reading among the political class in Westminster. By the 2010s and 2020s he was more openly critical of some of the groups he had been affiliated with, criticising Conservative leaders Boris Johnson and Liz Truss as well as Stonewall's move to include trans rights in its remit. In 2024, he ended his Saturday political column in The Times.
Parris was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. The eldest of six children (three brothers and two sisters), he grew up in several British territories: South Africa, Cyprus, Rhodesia, Swaziland and Jamaica, where his father was working as an electrical engineer. His parents ended up working and living in Catalonia, Spain, where Parris later bought a house.[citation needed]
At the age of 19, Parris drove across Africa to Europe in a Morris Oxford; the trip was traumatically punctuated when, he reports in his 2002 autobiography, he and his female companion were attacked, and he was forced to witness her rape.
He later attributed his embrace of conservatism to an early reading of George Orwell's Animal Farm: "An admiration for [the pigs'] intelligence and sense of order dawned in me. I never liked them, but their final triumph taught me that idealism is not enough."
Parris was educated at Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa, an independent school just outside Mbabane in Swaziland, Sessions School on the island of Cyprus, and Clare College, Cambridge, where he gained a first class degree in law and was a member of the Cambridge University Liberal Club. He won a Paul Mellon scholarship and studied international relations at Yale University. At Yale, he failed to receive his Master of Arts degree, later blaming "too much coffee, Four Roses bourbon, training to break a five-minute mile and hanging out with interesting people." It was at the university that he befriended Peter Ackroyd.
Parris was offered a job as an MI6 officer, but instead worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for two years. In 1976, he left this career because he did not like its formality, and because he wanted to become a Member of Parliament. He eventually joined the Conservative Research Department and moved on to become correspondence secretary to Margaret Thatcher.[citation needed]
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Matthew Parris
Matthew Francis Parris (born 7 August 1949) is a British political writer, broadcaster, and former politician. He served as Member of Parliament for West Derbyshire from 1979 to 1986. Ideologically a liberal conservative, he was a member of the Conservative Party, but resigned over the party's stance on Brexit.
Parris was born in South Africa to British parents. He subsequently studied at Clare College, Cambridge, and Yale University before working for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and then the Conservative Research Department. He entered parliament in 1979 and remained there until 1986, resigning to pursue a journalistic career as presenter of the television series Weekend World. After the series ended in 1988, he became a freelance columnist for The Times. Having spoken out for gay rights throughout the 1980s, in 1989 he was a founding member of the gay rights charity Stonewall.
During the 1990s, Parris' columns began being collected together for book publication and in 2002 he published his autobiography. His political column proved influential, described as being widely regarded as essential reading among the political class in Westminster. By the 2010s and 2020s he was more openly critical of some of the groups he had been affiliated with, criticising Conservative leaders Boris Johnson and Liz Truss as well as Stonewall's move to include trans rights in its remit. In 2024, he ended his Saturday political column in The Times.
Parris was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. The eldest of six children (three brothers and two sisters), he grew up in several British territories: South Africa, Cyprus, Rhodesia, Swaziland and Jamaica, where his father was working as an electrical engineer. His parents ended up working and living in Catalonia, Spain, where Parris later bought a house.[citation needed]
At the age of 19, Parris drove across Africa to Europe in a Morris Oxford; the trip was traumatically punctuated when, he reports in his 2002 autobiography, he and his female companion were attacked, and he was forced to witness her rape.
He later attributed his embrace of conservatism to an early reading of George Orwell's Animal Farm: "An admiration for [the pigs'] intelligence and sense of order dawned in me. I never liked them, but their final triumph taught me that idealism is not enough."
Parris was educated at Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa, an independent school just outside Mbabane in Swaziland, Sessions School on the island of Cyprus, and Clare College, Cambridge, where he gained a first class degree in law and was a member of the Cambridge University Liberal Club. He won a Paul Mellon scholarship and studied international relations at Yale University. At Yale, he failed to receive his Master of Arts degree, later blaming "too much coffee, Four Roses bourbon, training to break a five-minute mile and hanging out with interesting people." It was at the university that he befriended Peter Ackroyd.
Parris was offered a job as an MI6 officer, but instead worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for two years. In 1976, he left this career because he did not like its formality, and because he wanted to become a Member of Parliament. He eventually joined the Conservative Research Department and moved on to become correspondence secretary to Margaret Thatcher.[citation needed]
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