Matthew Parris, author, broadcaster and columnist for The Times and The Spectator

Matthew Parris

Columnist on The Times and the Spectator, author and broadcaster

Matthew Parris is a columnist on The Times and The Spectator. He began his career at the Foreign Office, and, after a spell at the Conservative Research Department, was on the staff of Margaret Thatcher’s office from 1977 until the 1979 General Election, when he was elected Member of Parliament for West Derbyshire. He gave up his seat in 1986 to become Presenter of LWT’s Weekend World – a political interview programme.

Parris was the Parliamentary sketchwriter for The Times for nearly fourteen years but gave it up at the beginning of 2002, though he remains a columnist for the paper. He is a frequent television and radio broadcaster, and his books include Great Parliamentary Scandals (2004, with Kevin Maguire) and Scorn (2008).

He has received a number of journalistic awards, including the British Press Awards’ Columnist of the Year for 1991, 1993 and 1995 and the What The Papers Say Columnist of the Year for 1992 and 2004. He was the winner of the George Orwell Prize for 2004. In February 2010 he was voted Britain’s top columnist in a survey of his peers and the public.