Chance witness

A frank autobiography by The Times columnist and ex-politican Matthew Parris. His childhood was spent on a variety of different countries as his engineer father moved jobs; Rhodesia, Cyprus, the Middle East and Jamaica, After Cambridge and Yale, he joined the Conservative central office at roughly the same time (aged 26) he discovered he was gay. He worked for Michael Dobbs, Chris Patten, Mrs Thatcher (who famously fired him), before entering parliament himself. Part participant, part bystander, Matthew Parris describes what it was like to be so close to the centre and remain an outsider.