Adam Afriyie

Adam Afriyie
MP
Adam Afriyie on street.jpg
Member of Parliament
for Windsor
Incumbent
Assumed office
5 May 2005
Preceded by Michael Trend
Majority 19,054 (38.4%) [1]
Personal details
Born (1965-08-04) 4 August 1965 (age 47)
Wimbledon, London
Nationality British
Political party Conservative
Alma mater Wye College
Profession Politician
Website www.adamafriyie.org

Adam Afriyie (born 4 August 1965) is a British Conservative Party politician, and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Windsor. He was first elected at the 2005 general election and re-elected at the 2010 election.

Early life

The son of an English mother and a Ghanaian father, Afriyie was born in Wimbledon, London and grew up on a council estate in Peckham, going to the local Oliver Goldsmith Primary School.[2] He was educated at Addey and Stanhope School and has a degree in agricultural economics from Wye College which was sold to Imperial College London.

Afriyie has seven half-siblings and one brother. He said of his upbringing: "I never knew my father until I was much older and my mother, Gwen, brought us up alone. She was my rock, the gel at the centre of my life, although her tumultuous relationships with different men made for a constant state of flux at the boundaries of our family."[2]

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Business career

Afriyie is chairman of Connect Support Services, an IT support company. Afriyie owned two thirds of DeHavilland, a news and information services company, which was sold to publishers Emap in 2005 for £18 million.[3] He was also a regional finalist in the 2003 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year awards. He was a Governor of the Museum of London, a trustee of the Museum in Docklands and a director of Policy Exchange, a centre-right policy body.

Afriyie is an owner of Adfero, a search engine optimization business which produces thousands of short articles for corporate clients who require web content that features popular keywords in an attempt to appear at the top of Google's search rankings.[3] The company is also known as Content Plus, NewsReach, DirectNews, Axon Media, and Axxon Media.[3] Adfero turned over £9.4m in 2011 and made a pre-tax profit of £1.3m. Afriyie is the largest shareholder of the firm and he and his fellow directors split dividends of £2.2m in 2010 and 2011 and shared directors' pay of £3.6m over the last five years.[3]

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Member of Parliament

A member of the Conservative Party since 1990, in 1999 Afriye worked for Jeffrey Archer on his unsuccessful campaign to be the first directly elected Mayor of London.[3]

Afriyie was selected as Parliamentary candidate for the traditionally Conservative constituency of Windsor in October 2003. He was elected at the 2005 election with an increased share of the vote (49.5%) and a swing to the Conservatives of 1.2%. He is the Conservative Party's first mixed race MP, although he said in an interview with the Evening Standard he considers himself not as black but "post-racial".[2] In the 2010 election, Afriyie was re-elected with an increased share of the vote (60.8%) and a swing to the Conservatives of 11.4%. He made his maiden speech on 20 May 2005.[4]

In Parliament, he was a member of the Science and Technology select committee from 2005 until its abolition in July 2007, and has since been a member of the Children, Schools and Families select committee. He has been since 2010, the President of the Conservative Technology Forum.

He was appointed Conservative Shadow Minister for Innovation, Universities and Skills in July 2007.[5]

He does not claim either a second home allowance or any travel expenses for his duties as an MP.[6]

In April 2010, he voted for the Digital Economy Bill. In February 2012, he voted against same-sex marriage.[7]

On 27 January 2013, the Sunday Times reported that Afriyie was being groomed as a possible successor to David Cameron as party leader, if the Conservative party fails to win a majority in the 2015 general election.[8] However, he retorted, "I will never stand against David Cameron. I am 100% supportive of David Cameron."[7]

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Personal life

In September 2004, he divorced his first wife, Romi.[9] In May 2004, Adam and Romi Afriyie had won a libel case against the Mail on Sunday over a published article titled "What IDS's Mr Perfect didn't tell Tory bosses".[10] The article was called a "hatchet job" by Darcus Howe in the New Statesman.[11]

In August 2005,[12] he married his second and current wife Tracy-Jane (née Newell),[13] a barrister and former wife of London deputy mayor (then deputy leader of Westminster Council) Kit Malthouse. They have four children.[14]

A self-made millionaire, he is worth an estimated wealth of £13m to £100m.[7][3] Afryie owns a large house in Westminster, and a former 17th-century monastery in Old Windsor called "The Priory".[3]

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References

  1. ^ "Adam Afriyie MP, Windsor". TheyWorkForYou.com. Retrieved 2010-05-14. 
  2. ^ a b c David Cohen (2010-02-08). "Adam Afriyie: From Peckham council house to shadow minister - News - London Evening Standard". Standard.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-01-27. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "Adam Afriyie profile: before any plot, there was always a word farm". The Guardian. Retrieved February 1, 2013. 
  4. ^ Department of the Official Report (Hansard), House of Commons, Westminster (2005-05-23). "Hansard - 20/05/2005". Publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 2010-05-14. 
  5. ^ Conservative Party - Adam Afriyie MP profile[dead link]
  6. ^ "UK | UK Politics | Which MPs didn't claim expenses?". BBC News. 2009-05-14. Retrieved 2010-05-14. 
  7. ^ a b c Scott Roberts, Tory MP Adam Afriyie: I voted against the same-sex marriage bill because it does not represent true equality, Pink News, February 7, 2013
  8. ^ Isabel Oakeshott Political Editor. "Black MP is hot tip to be the next Tory leader". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2013-01-27. 
  9. ^ "Cameron and his filly-buster | Mail Online". Dailymail.co.uk. 2005-10-09. Retrieved 2013-01-27. 
  10. ^ Adam and Romi Afriyie win libel claim against Mail on Sunday
  11. ^ "Darcus Howe is proved absolutely right on black Tories". Newstatesman.com. Retrieved 2013-01-27. 
  12. ^ "ConservativeHome Saturday 20th August 2005". Conservativehome.blogs.com. 2005-08-20. Retrieved 2013-01-27. 
  13. ^ "WPR - Adam Afriyie MP". Parliamentaryrecord.com. Retrieved 2013-01-27. 
  14. ^ "Adam Afriyie: The Tory Obama's stalking horse plot to oust David Cameron | Mail Online". Dailymail.co.uk. 2013-01-23. Retrieved 2013-01-27. 
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External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Michael Trend		 Member of Parliament for Windsor
2005–present		 Incumbent
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Last modified on 5 May 2013, at 14:18