Tony Baldry.html



Tony Baldry MP
Member of Parliament for Banbury
Incumbent
Assumed office  9 June 1983
Preceded by	Neil Marten
Majority	10,797 (19.2%)
Born	10 July 1950 (1950-07-10) (age 58) Uxbridge,London
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Alma mater	University of Sussex
Profession	Barrister
Website	Tony Baldry MP's website

Anthony Brian Baldry, known as Tony Baldry, (born July 10, 1950) is a British Conservative politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Banbury.

Early life

Born in 1950, Baldry was educated at Leighton Park School and the University of Sussex. He reached the rank of Colonel in the Territorial Army during his nearly 20 years in the Royal Artillery from 1971. In 1974 he became a personal assistant to Margaret Thatcher, and was Called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1975, after which he became a director at the New Opportunity Press. He won the Robert Schumann Silver Medal in 1978, and until his election was the Vice President of The National Children's Home.

Baldry was first selected as a Conservative Parliamentary candidate for the Thurrock constituency in December 1976, but the local politics proved difficult and controversial, and he found himself deserted by a significant number of party activists in the 1979 general election when he was easily defeated by Labour's Oonagh McDonald.

Parliamentary career

Following the retirement of veteran Conservative MP Neil Marten who represented Banbury, Baldry successfully contested the seat at the 1983 general election and was elected to Parliament with a majority of 13,025.

From 1985 to 1990, Baldry was a Parliamentary Private Secretary, successively to Lynda Chalker and John Wakeham. Following the election of John Major as Prime Minister in 1990, Baldry finally entered government initially as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and was moved sideways later in the year to the Department for the Environment. In 1994, he moved sideways again to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 1995 he was promoted to the rank of Minister of State at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, a position he held until the fall of the Major government in 1997. Whilst in office, his civil servants had nicknamed him 'Baldrick'.¹

Baldry has twice been forced to apologise to the House. The first time was for advocating an honour for Desmond de Silva, but failing to metion de Silva's contributions to his campaign fund.^{citation needed} The second occasion in 2005 was for promoting the diamond mining interests of two Israeli business men in Sierra Leone, Nissim Levy and Yair Ziv, without disclosing his indirect financial interest.²³ Having apologised Baldry then proceeded to receive free shares for his efforts in their company Target Resources PLC, an AIM quoted company.

He was dropped from the frontbench by William Hague and has since remained on the backbenches. He is seen as being a supporter of David Cameron whose constituency, Witney, is next to his in Oxfordshire.

Personal life

Baldry is a practising barrister and joint Head of Chambers at One Essex Court in the Temple, London.

Refereneces

External links

• Tony Baldry MP official website
• ePolitix — Tony Baldry MP
• Guardian Unlimited Politics — Ask Aristotle: Tony Baldry MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com — Tony Baldry MP
• The Public Whip — Tony Baldry MP voting record
• BBC News — Tony Baldry profile