Teddy Edwards

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Matt Kemp
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Teddy Edwards

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Edward “Teddy” James Alfred Edwards is a British-Vincentian politician and the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Sutton & Cheam.

Born on 4 September 1969 in Wallington, Edwards’ father was a migrant from St. Vincent and his mother a British schoolteacher. At the time of Edwards’ birth, St. Vincent was a British colony; Ralph Carpenter, James’ father, had worked in the Vincentian civil service before travelling to London to take up a post at what had then been the Colonial Office.

Growing up in south London, Edwards attended Wilson’s School - a boy’s grammar school in Sutton - where he performed well in his GCE Ordinary and Advanced Levels. He was a keen rugby union player and captained the school team; he went on to attend the University of Durham where he read political science, later concluding a master’s degree in the subject at the University of Oxford. While studying at Oxford, Edwards wrote “Britannici Imperii,” an assessment of the history of the British Empire from 1790 to 1990. He focused particularly on the impact of British colonisation on St. Vincent and other Caribbean states. One reviewer described the book as “unflinchingly honest about Britain’s wrongdoing; and unapologetically proud of Britain as a force for good.” Detailed passages comparing the British to other contemporary empire-builders were well-received by critics: the book concludes with a “counterfactual” offering an alternative history of the Empire, whereby Dominion status is almost universally, rather than selectively, granted in the early 20th Century and the Dominions of the Empire choose to remain affiliated to Britain in a strengthened Commonwealth. Edwards also opposed the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1986 and opined that British Hong Kong, as it then was, should be given a referendum on its future.

After completing his master’s degree at Oxford, Edwards attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst to be inducted into the British Army. He met his first wife, Elizabeth Weiman, in 1994, and after marrying the couple bore four children. In 2001, Carpenter was deployed to Afghanistan as part of the War on Terror.

Transferring to the Reserves in 2007, Edwards worked with friends he had met at Durham to develop a mobile phone application which allowed land owners to rent out parking spaces on an hour-by-hour basis, from small driveways in city centres to more extensive off-road parking. The app, named iPark, was sold in 2013 for £500 million.

Edwards invested a portion of his earnings from the sale in the London Stock Exchange, using the remainder to co-found a recruitment agency specialising in finding employment opportunities for former servicemen and women. He founded the “Troops4Tories” campaign organisation, and was selected by the Conservative Party to contest the seat of Sutton & Cheam ahead of the 2015 general election: he gained the seat from Paul Burstow of the Liberal Democrats.

In 2016, Edwards released “Open Britannia,” seen by many as a manifesto for what he described as “progressive conservatism.” Response to the book was mixed, with one reviewer calling it “a tired attempt to copy Blair’s New Labour strategy and paste it into the Conservative Party,” whilst another described Carpenter as “an emerging leader of the Tory centre.”

Despite associating with prominent Remain-backers such as Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen, Edwards advocated a vote to leave the European Union in the referendum of 2016. After the referendum, he said that “Brexit is not a vote to close the borders, shutter the windows and return to an autarkic diet of Spam and Smash. It is a vote to retake control of our destiny and go out into the world as an independent free trading nation once more.”

In a 2017 interview, Edwards said that he “[had] difficulty placing [himself] on the political compass,” adding that “by some measures, such as on global free trade and free markets, I’m very right wing […] but I do believe there is a role for government, and I think a new consensus is beginning to form around government […] not necessarily being bigger, but being more muscular.”

“I am socially very liberal on almost every issue, but I partner that with a very deep love for the flag and the monarchy and British history and culture. I’m pro-immigration and pro a strong welfare state. I’m also pro a very vigorous national defence and a belief in God, and a belief in patriotism. In Britain as one country. I think what it means […] to be a Tory is being redefined again.”

In 2017, the Theresa May appointed Edwards to a junior ministerial role at the Cabinet Office. He was moved to DCMS under Arthur Stanley and became closely associated with Juliet Manning: he followed her to the Department for Public Services & Social Affairs and to the Foreign Office, where as Minister for Europe he led negotiations with EFTA whilst Manning focused on the EU. During the Latvian Crisis he fielded urgent questions from the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in a well-publicised appearance whilst Manning and Prime Minister Grant Kingston were meeting President Trump in Brussels.

Edwards married his second wife, 28-year-old Polish model and Instagram influencer Justyna Gradek, in 2019. They have one child.
Matt Kemp MP
Member of Parliament for York Outer 2010-
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Matt Kemp
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Re: Teddy Edwards

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Matt Kemp MP
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