Matthew Parris

Matthew Parris was born in Africa and grew up in Cyprus, Rhodesia, Jamaica and Britain. He worked for the Foreign Office and Margaret Thatcher before becoming an MP in 1979. After serving in parliament for seven years (he claims as his only success the abolition of imprisonment for prostitutes) he quit to present LWT’s ‘Weekend World’.

For thirteen years The Times’s parliamentary sketchwriter and a regular travel writer, reviewer, broadcaster and Spectator columnist, he lives in London and Derbyshire.