Edward Vaizey

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Edward Henry Butler Vaizey (born June 5, 1968) is a British Conservative commentator, politician and columnist. He was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for the constituency of Wantage on May 2005, with 22,394 votes. His majority was 8,017 over the Liberal Democrat candidate, Andrew Crawford. This represented 43% of the voters and a 1.9% swing from the Lib Dems to the Tories.

Vaizey is the son of the late Lord Vaizey, a life peer, and his wife Marina Vaizey, a well-known art historian. Vaizey spent part of his childhood growing up in Berkshire. He was educated at St Paul's School and Merton College, Oxford, where he rose to the rank of Librarian (Vice President) of the Oxford Union and took a 2.1 in History. After leaving Oxford, Vaizey worked for the Conservative politicians Kenneth Clarke and Michael Howard as an adviser on employment and education issues. He trained and practised as a barrister for several years, specialising in family law and child care cases. He was a partner at Consolidated Communications, a Public Relations agency.

He has been a regular commentator on the Conservative Party in the press. He has written regular comment pieces for The Guardian since 1998, and contributes articles to the Sunday Times news review. He has also written for The Times and the Daily Telegraph and written editorials for the Evening Standard. Vaizey is also a regular broadcaster, appearing on Fi Glover's and Edwina Currie's shows on BBC Radio Five Live, as a regular panellist on five’s The Wright Stuff and BBC Radio 4's Despatch Box, and occasionally as a presenter of People and Politics on the BBC World Service.

Vaizey first stood for Parliament at the 1997 UK general election, when he was the candidate for Bristol East. In the 2001 UK general election, he acted as an election aide to Iain Duncan Smith. He stood in the 2002 local elections in the safe Labour ward of Harrow Road in the City of Westminster.

In 2002 he was selected by Wantage Conservative Association as its candidate for the 2005 election, to succeed the sitting MP, Robert Jackson, who subsequently defected to Labour. Vaizey won a two-thirds majority on the final ballot of members. He is seen as a moderniser in the Conservative Party, contributing in both policy and image terms. He was a speechwriter for Michael Howard, leader of the Conservative Party until December 2005, and the editor of the Blue Books series, which looked at new approaches to Conservative policy in areas such as health and transport. He was one of Michael Howard's inner circle of advisers and a member of a group of young Tories sometimes disparagingly referred to as the 'Notting Hill set', along with David Cameron - elected leader of the party in December 2005 - George Osborne, Michael Gove, Nicholas Boles and Rachel Whetstone.

[edit] Bibliography

A Blue Tomorrow - New Visions for Modern Conservatives (2001) (ed. with Michael Gove and Nicholas Boles). ISBN 1-84275-027-5
Blue Book on Health: Conservative Visions for Health Policy (2002) ISBN 1-84275-043-7
Blue Book on Transport: Conservative Visions for Transport Policy (ed with Michael McManus) (2002) ISBN 1-84275-044-5
Blue Book on Education (ed with Michael McManus) (2003)