The James Gray Chronicles
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About the author
James is a recently retired UK MP of longstanding (27 years). His weekly newsletter, Wiltshire to Westminster achieved a high degree of popularity in that time, and this blog hopes to continue it.
James Gray was first elected as MP for North Wiltshire in May 1997.
He was educated at Hillhead Primary School and Glasgow High School and later read History at Glasgow University and Christ Church, Oxford. More recently he was a visiting Parliamentary Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford and is a graduate of the Royal College of Defence Studies.
After his election to Parliament in 1997, James served as a Conservative Whip and then as a Shadow Minister for Defence. He served as Shadow Minister for the Countryside and after the 2005 General Election briefly as Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, later as a Member of Mr Speaker’s Panel of Chairmen. James lost his South Cotswolds seat in the 2024 Conservative collapse, but will continue various aspects of his Parliamentary life.
James’s military interest, for example, includes seven years in the Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest regiment in the Army Reserve, on whose Court of Assistants he also served from 2002 to 2007. He is a graduate of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme and of the Royal College of Defence Studies. In 2010, James founded the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Armed Forces, which he has chaired since. In 2013, James became founding Chairman of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust, which seconds up to 64 Parliamentarians a year to the three services. He has sat on the Defence Committee and the Committee on the National Security Strategy.
He has a particular interest in the Polar Regions, having travelled in both. James was a member of the Environmental Audit Committee , Chair of the EAC Sub-Committee on Polar Research, and is also Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Polar Regions. James was a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and remains a Younger Brother of Trinity House.
