Derek Laud

Derek Laud
Derek Laud in 2007 in Cape Town, SA,
Born	Derek George Henry Laud August 9, 1964 (1964-08-09) (age 47) London, UK
Residence	London, UK
Ethnicity	British African-Caribbean
Citizenship	United Kingdom
Occupation	Speechwriter, Lobbyist
Known for	Big Brother
Political party	Conservatives
Religion	Christian

Derek George Henry Laud (born 9 August 1964 in Chelsea) is a former British political adviser and Government Relations specialist, who has advised the Bank of England, The Securities and Investments Board, British Steel and Takcare PLC. He is a one-time Conservative parliamentary candidate, who achieved celebrity status during his run as a contestant in the 2005 series of the UK TV show Big Brother. He is a regular TV and Radio Broadcaster and writes regularly for the Mail on Sunday Newspaper. He also has extensive business interests and serves on numerous boards.

Early career

Laud, who is openly gay, gained some notability as the only black member of the Conservative Monday Club, for whom he produced, in October 1984, a Policy Paper entitled The Law, Order and Race Relations, under the auspices of the Club's Immigration and Race Relations Committee. He subsequently became a researcher and special adviser, working for Conservative Members of Parliament and Government Ministers in the mid-1980s. He previously worked in Private Equity Finance for Sir John Beckwith CBE, and was a director of numerous companies owned and controlled by the Pacific Group. Today he is the co-founder of the New City Initiative (NCI) and its Executive Director.

The NCI comprises 23 independent asset management companies with combined assets under management of £200 billion. He is Director of Wealth management company Stanhope Capital LLP, and sits on the Advisory Board, of which Lord Browne of Madingley(former group CEO of BP), is Chairman. Derek is also an advocate for the leading Gambling addiction Charity Gamcare, and The Dogs Trust to which he donated money won from his appearance on Celebrity 'Who wants to be a Millionaire' with Edwina Currie who was his co contestant.^{[citation needed]} on Monday 4 April 2011 the Financial Times carried an article about Laud's ideas for a social stock market exchange, which they described as his 'brain-child' and during the piece further asserted he was 'well connected'.^{[verification needed]} Laud argues that the social stock market exchange would create Prime Minister David Cameron's ideal of a Big Society. WWW.ft.com 'lead by example on social investment' by Pauline Skypala. Laud is a long standing family friend of Samantha Cameron's family and a personal friend of David Cameron and attended their wedding at Ginge, in Oxfordshire.^{[citation needed]}

During his career, Laud has contributed to speeches for several well-known Conservatives including, it is said,^[who?] Margaret Thatcher, Michael Heseltine and even Alan Clark.^{[citation needed]} He is briefly mentioned in both John Major's autobiography and Alan Clark's diaries.^{[citation needed]}In 1990 he was Campaign aid to the Rt. Hon. John Major's leadership election campaign. Moving on from Westminster, he was employed in the City of London in equity finance. He established a political lobbying company, Ludgate Laud, in the early 1990s, which was eventually sold to a WPP company, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

As a parliamentary lobbyist, Derek Laud was mentioned in the House of Commons by Labour MP Martin Linton in his maiden parliamentary speech. Laud made history by becoming the first and only black person to have been appointed Master of Foxhounds in the New Forest, Hampshire, where he has had a home for many years. Laud's long term friend's Sir John and Lady Mortimer are fellow enthusiastic hunt supporters and he had a front row seat at Mortimer's Memorial service, alongside Edward Fox, actress Emelia Fox and the Duchess of Cornwall.

Parliamentary candidacy

In the 1997 General Election, Laud was selected as Conservative candidate for Tottenham, a constituency with a very large nonwhite population that has been represented by black Labour MPs since 1987, but he stepped down shortly before the election citing "business reasons".

He met Michael Gove and Boris Johnson whilst still undergraduates and was approached before Johnson, to be London Mayoral Candidate by David Cameron's chief Strategist, Steve Hilton and the Conservative Party Chairman, Francis Maude MP. He declined to stand.

He is a regular and popular debating champion, and has spoken at a wide variety of events.

Subsequent activities

Derek Laud had long been an enthusiastic fox hunter, and in 1999, he became the Master of Foxhounds for the New Forest Hunt.^[1]

Laud has a wide circle of friends in the Conservative Party. In 2001, he provided an alibi^[1] for his friends Neil and Christine Hamilton when they were falsely accused by Nadine Milroy-Sloan of sexual assault.^[2]

Big Brother

Laud's background and audition videos for Big Brother showed him with his friend, British ex-boxer and celebrity, Chris Eubank.

Laud was the tenth person to be evicted from the Big Brother House after losing in a head-to-head with Eugene Sully.

After Big Brother

Laud partnered Edwina Currie on a charity edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on 17 September 2005.

During the Conservative Party conference in October 2005, he commented that most politicians (with one exception) would not succeed on "Big Brother", saying "Good looks are very important and David Cameron is very attractive."^[3]

Laud appeared on BBC's Question Time which was held in Newbury, Berkshire in November 2005. His political views, which some^[who?] characterise as populist right-wing, tended to polarise people for or against him.^{[citation needed]} Laud said, speaking in favour of longer pub opening hours: 'I think as adults - and responsible adults at that - we should be able to determine that (when to drink) for ourselves. ... I think that essentially what we've got to be doing here is to encourage people to take responsibilities for themselves and get the state out of our private lives.' About education in Britain he said: '44,000 people this year at 16 years old left school without a single GCSE - that is a national disaster. So where is Blair's radicalism? He will fall short of his place in history if he doesn't live up to the radicalism of Asquith in 1908 and Clement Attlee in 1945 and Thatcher in 1979 if he doesn't get this right. He has to take on these people who've got this taboo about the private sector having any part in education, and I deplore it.'

Graham Norton, on The Bigger Picture, asked his audience to take a good look at Mr Laud "because you'll probably never meet another black gay Tory."

He makes regular TV and Radio appearances and is frequently on Sky News, The Alan Titchmarsh show, and Radio 5 live. Laud is a regular feature writer for the Mail on Sunday, in addition to holding numerous other Charitable and non Charitable positions.

Return to politics

Derek Laud has recently expressed an interest in returning to politics in light of the MPs' expense scandal.^{[citation needed]} He has also begun to blog on the Telegraph.

He has written extensively for The Daily Mail on Sunday for many years and is particularly popular as a tennis writer at Wimbledon every year. He is a competitive sportsman and enjoys a wide range of sporting activity and his friends include many top playing, men and women professional tennis players.

See also

• Hundred Group
• CAABU

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Womersley, Tara; Foster, Peter (13 August 2001). "Dinner guests whose testimony will count". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/08/13/nham213.xml. 
2. ^ McVeigh, Karen (3 February 2005). "£100,000 win for libelled Hamiltons". The Scotsman (Edinburgh). Archived from the original on 13 March 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050313192852/http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=781&id=128202005. 
3. ^ Stone-Lee, Ollie (5 October 2005). "Big Brother Derek Backs Cameron". BBC News Online (London). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4311070.stm. 

Persondata
Name	Laud, Derek
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Date of birth	9 August 1964
Place of birth	London, UK
Date of death
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