34 Facts About Matthew Parris

Matthew Francis Parris was born on 7 August 1949 and is a British political writer, broadcaster, and former politician.

Matthew Parris served as Member of Parliament for West Derbyshire from 1979 to 1986.

Matthew Parris subsequently studied at Clare College, Cambridge, and Yale University before working for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and then the Conservative Research Department.

Matthew Parris entered parliament in 1979 and remained there until 1986, resigning to pursue a journalistic career as presenter of the television series Weekend World.

Matthew Parris is the eldest of six children and grew up in several British territories and former territories: South Africa, Cyprus, Rhodesia, Swaziland and Jamaica, where his father was working as an electrical engineer.

Matthew Parris's parents ended up working and living in Catalonia, Spain, where Parris later bought a house.

Matthew 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 Liberal Club.

Matthew Parris won a Paul Mellon scholarship and studied international relations at Yale University.

Matthew Parris was offered a job as an MI6 officer, but instead worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for two years.

Matthew Parris eventually joined the Conservative Research Department and moved on to become correspondence secretary to Margaret Thatcher.

Matthew Parris later attributed that incident for the party's decision to select him as a parliamentary candidate.

Matthew Parris was the Conservative MP for the parliamentary constituency of West Derbyshire from 1979 to 1986.

Matthew Parris is a radio and television presenter, The Times columnist, and pundit.

Matthew Parris resigned as an MP by applying for the Crown position of Steward of the Manor of Northstead and left Parliament specifically to take over from Brian Walden as host of ITV's influential Sunday lunchtime current-affairs series Weekend World in 1986.

The series, broadcast since 1977 with Walden at its helm, ran for two more years under Matthew Parris before being cancelled in 1988.

In 2007, Matthew Parris presented two light-hearted but caustic documentaries for Radio 4 on politicians' use of cliche and jargon, entitled Not My Words, Mr Speaker.

In December 2017 Matthew Parris appeared, in a cameo role, in the Anniversary edition of BBC's The League of Gentlemen.

Matthew Parris is a prolific writer and has written many books on politics and travel.

Matthew Parris has achieved continuing success as a parliamentary reporter and columnist through his knowledge and understanding of politicians and ability to write well about them.

Matthew Parris worked as parliamentary sketch writer for The Times newspaper from 1988 to 2001 and has had weekly columns in The Times and The Spectator magazine.

In 2004, Matthew Parris became Writer of the Year in Granada Television's What the Papers Say Awards.

Matthew Parris has a penchant for holding opinions that go against the grain.

Matthew Parris has written scathingly about the localism agenda, and was a long-time defender of PMQs, although he recently changed his mind.

In May 2021, Matthew Parris called for the removal of ethnic minority status from Gypsy, Roma and Travellers, describing them "not a race, but a doomed mindset" and called for "a gradual but relentless squeeze on anyone who tries without permission to park their home on public property or the property of others".

In 2022, Matthew Parris described Liz Truss as "a planet-sized mass of overconfidence and ambition teetering upon a pinhead of a political brain".

In July 2024, a few weeks short of his 75th birthday, Matthew Parris stopped writing his long-running Saturday opinion column in The Times, in which he mostly commented on British politics.

Matthew Parris continues to write his diary column for the newspaper, which appears on Wednesdays.

Matthew Parris spent the Antarctic winter of 2000 on the French possession of Grande Terre, part of the Kerguelen Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, with a few dozen over-winterers, mostly researchers.

Ideologically, in 2024 Matthew Parris described himself as inclining towards liberal conservatism.

Matthew Parris has stated that there are between 30 and 60 unannounced gay members of the British Parliament.

Matthew Parris owns homes in Spain, Derbyshire and the Docklands in East London.

Matthew Parris is the honorary patron of Clare Politics, a student-run politics society at Clare College, Cambridge.

Matthew Parris was a keen marathon runner, taking part in the London Marathon several times.

Matthew Parris decided that he wanted to go out on top, and arguing that serious running is not good for one's health, he stopped running marathons after that.