Nick Boles

Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles (born 2 November 1965) is a British politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Grantham and Stamford from 2010 to 2019.

Boles was born on 2 November 1965, the son of Sir Jack Boles, who was later Director-General of the National Trust from 1975 to 1983.

He is the great-nephew of Conservative MP Dennis Boles.

Boles was a scholar at Winchester College before reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford and then was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship to study for a Master's in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

In 1995, Boles founded a small DIY supply business, Longwall Holdings Limited, of which he is the non-executive chairman, having served as its chief executive until 2000.

In 1998, he was elected as a Conservative councillor for the West End ward on Westminster City Council.

He was chairman of the council's housing committee from 1999 to 2001, before stepping down in 2002.

Boles was considered one of a group of young Conservatives, aligned with David Cameron and George Osborne, described as the Notting Hill set.

He founded the think tank Policy Exchange in 2002, and served as its director until leaving the organisation in 2007.

Boles was the Conservative Party candidate for the Labour-held marginal seat of Hove for the 2005 general election.

He shunned help from the local mainly older Conservative Party members and instead relied on younger people from London who had little rapport with the local electorate.

He received media attention during the election by being an openly gay Conservative candidate for a winnable seat.

However, Celia Barlow retained the seat for Labour.

Boles recovered from his illness, and in October 2007, was selected as the prospective Conservative candidate for Grantham and Stamford, then occupied by Quentin Davies, who had switched allegiance from the Conservatives to Labour earlier in 2007.

He was a candidate in the Conservative primary for the 2008 London mayoral election, but withdrew after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

In May 2008, Boles was appointed as the Chief of Staff for the new Conservative Mayor of London Boris Johnson for three months.

In the second half of 2008, he worked on preparing the Conservatives for government by meeting senior civil servants to discuss how to implement Conservative policies if they won the next general election.

He was elected to the Grantham and Stamford constituency in Lincolnshire at the 2010 general election.

Boles was elected as member for Grantham and Stamford in May 2010 with a majority of 14,826.

He was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Schools Minister Nick Gibb in 2010.

Boles was Minister for Planning between November 2012 and August 2014.

He introduced a "presumption for sustainable development" aimed at making new housing development easier, which required councils to create local plans identifying areas that were suitable for further building.

In a November 2013 speech, at a conference fringe meeting, he argued that, despite their unpopularity, the reforms were "making the world a slightly better place", but that he'd prefer to work in education than planning.

He served as Minister of State for Skills from 2014 to 2016.

In August 2014, Boles was appointed Minister for Skills, which included responsibilities for education and construction.

In October 2016, Boles announced that a cancerous tumour had been found in his head and he expected to undergo treatment soon.

The following February, he took a trip out of hospital after a third round of chemotherapy in order to vote for the government's bill on withdrawal from the European Union.

He announced in April 2017 he would be standing at the 2017 general election.

The tumour was eradicated by chemotherapy.

He was a member of the Conservative Party until 2019.

Before entering Parliament, Boles was a Westminster City councillor and the director of Policy Exchange, a think tank based in Westminster.

Boles resigned from his local Conservative Association on 16 March 2019 citing differences with his local party.

On 1 April 2019, he resigned the party whip, accusing the party of failing to compromise on Brexit.

He then sat as an Independent Progressive Conservative until the dissolution of parliament on 5 November.

On 16 March 2019, Boles resigned from his local Conservative Association after disagreeing with them about his rejection of leaving the EU with no deal.

The local association had been considering deselecting him as candidate at the next election, due to the disagreement.

On 1 April 2019, Boles resigned from the Conservative Party following the announcement of the results of the second round of indicative votes on exiting the European Union.

He had been a proponent with Oliver Letwin of the "Common Market 2.0" proposal, which failed at 261 - 282 votes, and reportedly felt "furious", "upset" and "let down" by fellow MPs who had promised to vote in support of his proposal, and at party whips who had attempted to persuade MPs to abstain on the proposal, despite declaring it to be a free vote.

He stated in his resignation speech that:

He subsequently described himself as sitting as an "Independent Progressive Conservative" until Parliament was dissolved on 6 November 2019.