Nicholas Soames

Arthur Nicholas Winston Soames, Baron Soames of Fletching, (born 12 February 1948), is a British Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Sussex from 1997 to 2019, having previously served as the MP for Crawley from 1983 to 1997. Soames was Minister of State for the Armed Forces from 1994 to 1997 in the government of John Major. He had the whip removed on 3 September 2019, for voting against the government, before it was restored on 29 October. His main political interests are defence, international relations, rural affairs and industry. He is a grandson of former prime minister Winston Churchill. Early life, education and military service Soames was born in 1948 in Croydon, Surrey, the eldest son of Sir Christopher Soames and Dame Mary (née Spencer-Churchill) Soames. He is a grandson of the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and a grandnephew of Lady Baden-Powell, World Chief Guide, the wife of the founder of the Scout movement, Lord Baden-Powell. Industrialist Rupert Soames is Soames's brother, and journalist Emma Soames is a sister. Simon Hoggart, writing in The Guardian, related an anecdote of Soames' childhood: "He gave me the true version of what I had always suspected was an apocryphal story. In or around 1953, when Soames was five, he didn't know how important his grandfather was until someone told him. So he walked up to the old man's bedroom, managed to get past the valets and the secretaries, and found him sitting up in bed. 'Is it true, grandpapa, that you are the greatest man in the world?' he asked. 'Yes I am,' said Churchill. 'Now bugger off.'"