Matthew Parris

Not to be confused with Matthew Paris.

For the lawyer and writer on Balkan affairs see Matthew Parish.

Matthew Parris
Member of Parliament for West Derbyshire
In office 3 May 1979 – 8 May 1986
Preceded by	James Scott-Hopkins
Succeeded by	Patrick McLoughlin
Majority	15,325 (28.9%)
Personal details
Born	7 August 1949 (1949-08-07) (age 62) Johannesburg, South Africa
Occupation	Politician, journalist
Religion	None (atheist)

Matthew Francis Parris (born 7 August 1949 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a UK-based journalist and former Conservative politician.

Early life and family

Parris is the eldest of six children (three brothers and two sisters) and grew up in several British territories and former territories: South Africa, Cyprus, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Swaziland and Jamaica, where his father was working as an electrical engineer. His parents ended up working and living in Catalonia, an autonomous region of Spain, where Parris later bought a house.

Education

Parris was educated at Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa, an independent school just outside Mbabane in Swaziland, followed by Clare College at the University of Cambridge, from which he gained a first class degree in Law, where he was also a member of Cambridge University Liberal Club.^[1] He then won a Paul Mellon scholarship and studied international relations at Yale University.

Life and career

At the age of 19, Parris drove across Africa to Europe in a Morris Oxford; the trip was traumatically punctuated when he and the girl he was travelling with were attacked, and he was forced to witness her rape.^{[citation needed]}

Parris was offered a job as a secret agent, but instead worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for two years. In 1976 he left this secure career because he did not like its formality, and because he wanted to become a Member of Parliament. He eventually joined the Conservative Research Department and moved on to become correspondence secretary to Margaret Thatcher. He was awarded an RSPCA medal (presented by Mrs Thatcher, then Leader of the Opposition), for jumping into the Thames and rescuing a dog.

Parliamentary career

He served as the Conservative MP for the rural parliamentary constituency of West Derbyshire from 1979 until 1986. Competing prospective candidates for the seat included Peter Lilley and Michael Howard, later Conservative leader. The start of his career was overshadowed by a letter which he had written to a council tenant on behalf of Margaret Thatcher, which became featured in Labour Party election publications. As an MP he voiced his support for gay rights. Parris eventually left politics to pursue a career in journalism.

Radio and television work

Parris is now a radio and television presenter and pundit.^[2] As an MP he took part in a World In Action documentary during 1984 requiring him to live in Newcastle for a week on £26.80, the then state social security payment set for a single adult by the government he supported as a Conservative.^[3][4] The experiment came to an embarrassing end when he ran out of money for the electricity meter. Twenty years later, in 2004, he attempted the experiment again for the documentary For the Benefit of Mr Parris, Revisited.^[5][6]

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 Parris before being cancelled in 1988.

He presents BBC Radio 4's Great Lives biography series, and has appeared on the comedy news programme Have I Got News For You and presented After Dark.^[7]

In 2007, Parris presented two light-hearted but caustic documentaries for Radio 4 on politicians' use of cliché and jargon, entitled Not My Words, Mr Speaker.^{[citation needed]}

On 8 July 2011 on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions, at the height of the furore surrounding the alleged illegal and corrupt activities of News of the World journalists, Parris eulogised the newspaper and gave an enthusiastic appreciation of what he considered the virtues and positive achievements of Rupert Murdoch.^[8]

Writing and journalism

Parris is a prolific writer and has written many books on politics and travel. In 1991, a compilation of his pieces in The Times appeared, entitled So Far, So Good. Since then there have been further compilations. Scorn, a book he has edited of quotations about curses, jibes and general invective, was published in October 1994.

His success has been as a parliamentary reporter, due to his knowledge and understanding of politicians and ability to express this well. He is regarded as one of the leading critics of Tony Blair, and is thought of by many as one of the most powerful commentators on Fleet Street. He worked as parliamentary sketch writer for The Times newspaper from 1988 to 2001. His writing has largely concerned current events rather than a historical account of his own time in politics. He has weekly columns in The Times and The Spectator magazine.

In 2004 Parris became Writer of the Year in Granada Television's What the Papers Say Awards. In part, this was for reporting on elections in Iraq and Afghanistan. His previous accolades include Columnist of the Year in the 1991 and 1993 British Press Awards, and in the What the Papers Say Awards 1992. In 1990 he received the London Press Club's Edgar Wallace Outstanding Reporter of the Year Award.

Criticism of Tony Blair

Parris has suggested that Tony Blair has a deep flaw in his personality which made him unsuitable for the role of Prime Minister. On 18 March 2006 he wrote:

I believe Tony Blair is an out-and-out rascal, terminally untrustworthy and close to being unhinged. I said from the start that there was something wrong in his head, and each passing year convinces me more strongly that this man is a pathological confidence-trickster. To the extent that he ever believes what he says, he is delusional. To the extent that he does not, he is an actor whose first invention — himself — has been his only interesting role.^[9]

Travel writing

Parris has made several expeditions abroad, including to Mount Kilimanjaro in 1967 and 1989, Zaire in 1973, the Sahara in 1978, and Peru and Bolivia. In 1990 he published Inca-Kola, about his travels in Peru.

L'Avenc

He 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. One of them was fatally shot in an accident during his stay, an event about which he wrote for the Times.^[10]

In 2005 Parris published A Castle in Spain about his family's project to refurbish a derelict sixteenth-century mansion, L'Avenc, in Catalonia, close to the foothills of the Pyrenees, and make his home there.

2007 cyclists controversy

In his article for The Times on 27 December 2007, Parris took a strong line against cyclists, beginning his column with "A festive custom we could do worse than foster would be stringing piano wire across country lanes to decapitate cyclists",^[11] going on to denounce cyclists on a number of grounds, particularly their alleged propensity for littering. This came as a shock to many cyclists, including some who had previously been caught by similar wires. Responses in the paper have included letters^[12] and a column in reply mentioning, among other things, that litter is often found along all-motor vehicle routes.^[13] Comparisons have been made to other issues of incitement and hate speech,^[14] which have been a controversial issue in the UK in recent years. Parris, who is openly gay and therefore a member of another potentially targeted minority, opposed the idea of a gay-protecting law in another column.^[15]

On 3 January, Parris apologised, "It was meant humorously but so many cyclists have taken it seriously that I plainly misjudged. I am sorry."^[16]

Personal life

Parris "came out as a homosexual in a late-night debate in the Commons in 1984 but, by his own admission, nobody noticed."^[17] He later announced he was gay in one of his weekly newspaper columns. In a live interview on Newsnight during the Ron Davies scandal of 1998, he famously told interviewer Jeremy Paxman that there were two gay members of the then current Labour Cabinet, one being Peter Mandelson. He has stated that there are between thirty and sixty unannounced gay members of the UK parliament. In August 2010, in a list compiled by the Independent on Sunday, Parris was voted the 49th most influential LGBT person in the United Kingdom.

In August 2006, Parris entered into a civil partnership with his long-term partner, Julian Glover, a political journalist at The Guardian. At the time of their partnership, they had been together for eleven years.^[17]

Parris was a keen marathon runner, taking part in the London event several times. His personal best was 2:32:57 which he recorded at the age of 34. He decided he wanted to go out on top and arguing that serious running is not good for health, he stopped running marathons after that. No British MP – sitting or retired – had equalled Parris's marathon timing in the 20th century.

He owns homes in Spain, Derbyshire, and the Docklands of east London. He is the honorary patron of Clare Politics, a student-run politics society at his alma mater, Clare College, Cambridge.^[18]

Bibliography

• Parting Shots: Undiplomatic Diplomats - the ambassadors' letters you were never meant to see Matthew Parris, Andrew Bryson (Penguin Books Ltd, 2010) ISBN 9780670919291
• Mission Accomplished!: A Treasury of the Things Politicians Wish They Hadn't Said Matthew Parris, Phil Mason (JR Books Ltd, 2007) ISBN 9781906217358
• A Castle in Spain (Viking, 2005) ISBN 0-670-91547-5
• Chance Witness: An Outsider's Life in Politics (Viking, 2002) ISBN 0-670-89440-0
• The King's English (Oxford Language Classics Series) Henry Fowler, Frank Fowler, Matthew Parris (introduction) (Oxford University Press, 2002) ISBN 0-19-860507-2
• Off Message: New Labour, New Sketches (Robson Books, 2001) ISBN 1-86105-479-3
• I Wish I Hadn't Said That: The Experts Speak - and Get It Wrong! Matthew Parris (foreword), Christopher Cerf, Victor Navasky (HarperCollins, 2000) ISBN 0-00-653149-0
• Against the Law: The Classic Account of a Homosexual in 1950s Britain Peter Wildeblood, Matthew Parris (introduction) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999) ISBN 0-297-64382-7
• The Great Unfrocked: Two Thousand Years of Church Scandal (Robson, 1998) ISBN 1-86105-129-8
• Scorn with Extra Bile Matthew Parris (editor) (Penguin Books, 1998) ISBN 0-14-027780-3
• I Couldn't Possibly Comment: More Sketches from the Commons (Robson Books, 1997) ISBN 1-86105-095-X
• Read My Lips: A Treasury of Things Politicians Wish They Hadn't Said (Parkwest Publications, 1997) ISBN 1-86105-043-7
• Great Parliamentary Scandals: Four Centuries of Calumny, Smear and Innuendo (Robson Books, 1995) ISBN 0-86051-957-0
• Scorn with Added Vitriol (Hamish Hamilton, 1995) ISBN 0-241-13587-7
• Scorn: A Bucketful of Discourtesy, Disparagement, Invective, Ridicule, Impudence, Contumely, Derision, Hate, Affront, Disdain, Bile, Taunts, Curses and Jibes (Hamish Hamilton, 1994) ISBN 0-241-13384-X
• Look Behind You!: Sketches and Follies from the Commons (Robson, 1993) ISBN 0-86051-874-4
• So Far So Good...: Selected Pieces (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991) ISBN 0-297-81215-7
• Inca Kola: A Traveller's Tale of Peru (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1990) ISBN 0-297-81075-8
• Coping with the Soviet Union Peter Blaker, Julian Critchley, Matthew Parris (Conservative Political Centre Bookshop, 1977) ISBN 0-85070-599-1

Journalism

Incomplete - to be updated

• "Another Voice: Sending English wine to Spain was no mean feat, but it was worth it". The Spectator 311 (9446): 26. 12 September 2009. http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/all/5317301/another-voice.thtml. Retrieved 20 June 2011. 

References

1. ^ Parris, Matthew (14 January 2010). "Invicta what a terrible choice of poem". The Times (London). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article6987062.ece. 
2. ^ "What’s smug and deserves to be decapitated?" [Cyclists.], The Times
3. ^ "British Film Industry: WORLD IN ACTION > FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR PARRIS" Thames TV, January 23, 1984
4. ^ "ITV TV Classics - World In Action" Published 4 May 2007, retrieved 16 July 2009
5. ^ "British Film Industry: FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR PARRIS, REVISITED" ITV1, January 29, 2004
6. ^ "Liberty Bell - For the Benefit of Mr Parris". Libertybell.tv. 2004-01-29. http://www.libertybell.tv/content.aspx?page=56&sub=67. Retrieved 2010-04-27. 
7. ^ Website of production company Open Media
8. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgvj
9. ^ "No more excuses. Just hand in your homework and go, Prime Minister", The Times
10. ^ Matthew Parris's account of stay on Kergulen in 2000, The Times
11. ^ What’s smug and deserves to be decapitated?, The Times, 27 December 2007
12. ^ Don’t kill the cure, The Times, 31 December 2007
13. ^ A joke that will sicken cyclists, The Times, 31 December 2007
14. ^ "Blog Archive » Should we decapitate homosexual columnists?". quickrelease.tv. 2007-12-29. http://quickrelease.tv/?p=274. Retrieved 2010-04-27. 
15. ^ We gays are not so weedy that we can't take insults, The Times, 11 October 2007
16. ^ Cycling fury at beheading 'joke', BBC, 3 January 2008
17. ^ ^{a b} The Times, 29 August 2006, Parris, the reluctant groom, says 'I do'
18. ^ Clare Politics. "About Us". http://www.clarepolitics.co.uk/aboutus/. Retrieved 15 August 2011. 

External links

• The Times Online - Matthew Parris's column archives
• The Times Online - The Matthew Parris Pol-Cast Podcast series commenting on the 2006 Party conference season
• The Times Online - Matthew Parris: the Kerguelen columns articles from his trip to the Kerguelen Islands
• CSPAN Video Q&A Dec 8, 2010
• Audio interview
• Matthew Parris at the Open Directory Project
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Matthew Parris

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by James Scott-Hopkins	Member of Parliament for West Derbyshire 1979–1986	Succeeded by Patrick McLoughlin

Persondata
Name	Parris, Matthew
Alternative names	Paris, Matthew
Short description	Journalist
Date of birth	1949-08-7
Place of birth	Johannesburg, South Africa
Date of death
Place of death