Louise Bagshawe

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Louise Bagshawe is an author of fiction and prospective Conservative party candidate.

She was educated at Woldingham School, a Catholic girls' boarding school in Surrey, and at St Anne's College, Oxford. She is a former President of the Oxford University Rock Society.[1].

At the age of fourteen she became the youngest-ever contributor to The Tablet. In 1989 she was Cadbury's Young Poet of the Year.

After leaving university, she became a marketing person for Sony Records, but aged 22 gave it up when she signed her first book deal, to publish Career Girls.[2]

She is aged 35, and married with two young children.[3]

She joined the Conservatives aged 14, but later joined the Labour Party under Tony Blair in 1996, believing Blair would be "socially liberal but an economic Tory".[4] She said that "she never stopped being a conservative", but "thought Blair was one too". Inspired by the picture of Margaret Thatcher pinned to her monitor, and saying that she was disappointed in Blair, she opted to rejoin the Conservatives, and campaigned for the Conservatives inthe 2001 election.[5]

Bagshawe has been placed on the 'A-List' of Conservative Party candidates ahead of the next general election.

She co-founded with Joseph Pascal The Oxonian Society, a New York-based speaking group which charges an annual membership to attend its speaking events.[6]

She has been adopted as the Conservative candidate for the UK Parliamentary constituency of Corby.

She is the sister of Tilly Bagshawe, a freelance journalist who published Adored in July 2005 (ISBN 0-446-57688-3).