Andrew Lam

[Anthony Edwards]

Name: Andrew Lam

Avatar: Eddie Peng

Age: 34 (born 21 February 1974 in Hong Kong)

Gender: Male 

Ethnicity: Hong Kong British

Sexuality: Homosexual, unmarried 

 

Party: Conservative

Political Outlook: Free-market lover, socially moderate, federalist, technocrat

Constituency: Argyll and Bute

Year Elected: 2007

 

Education: Kowloon Junior School (Primary), King George V School (Secondary), University of Manchester (Degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics).

Career: Market and Supply Chain Specialist, Diageo; Investor and Manager, Islay’s Best, MP for Argyll and Bute

 

--

Andrew Lam was born in Hong Kong in 1974, the son of a senior pilot and later executive for Cathay Pacific and his wife. Andrew attended the English-language international schools in Hong Kong and finished his education there in 1992. 

Given his father’s executive position, Andrew and his family became full British citizens under the British Nationality Selection Scheme in the early 1990s, and they relocated to the United Kingdom in 1993. His father took a position at British Aerospace as an executive in the company’s commercial aircraft division, and Andrew went off to university, taking a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Manchester. During his time there he took an interest in the decay of the city and its industrial areas, as well as an interest in the bars and everything that they had to offer.

Following his degree, Andrew turned away the offer from his parents to help him get a job with British Aerospace, and instead got a job at the new firm Diageo, working out of their offices in London as a supply chain expert and later moving up to a mid-level management position. He focused- and enjoyed- working on the scotch whisky portfolio and overseeing shipping and supply of the various Diageo brands. 

In 2003, some of his contacts and connections invited him to use what money he had (which wasn’t a lot, to be fair) to support and invest in a new distillery they were going to open up in Islay. Andrew left his job, moved up to Scotland, and started to help out with the distillery

Always a Conservative given what he saw as their efforts to help him get citizenship and their generally pro-business outlook, Andrew got involved in local politics, getting to know the players in the council and in Scottish Parliament (at least the Conservative ones, even if they never could get elected). He stood for the Argyll and Bute seat in 2005, losing narrowly to the Liberal Democrat candidate, and again in 2007, where a national swing towards the Conservatives led to him winning with a very narrow majority. 

While he’s not at all Scottish, he values his constituency and has applied an almost clinical approach to looking at how to retain his seat and to boost Conservative prospects in the country but focusing on localism and local issues and moving towards a more quasi-federal system to quiet down the sentiments of the SNP. 

Andrew is currently single.