Annette Burton

[Annette Burton]

Name: Annette Imelda Juliet Burton
Avatar: Theresa May
Age: 63 in 2007
Sex: Female
Ethnicity: White British
Marital Status: Married with three children
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual

Party: Conservative & Unionist
Political Outlook: Ideologically flexible
Constituency: Maidenhead
Year Elected: 1997

Education: Roedean School, University of Oxford LLB, Harvard Law School LLM
Career: Civil Servant, international law adviser @ Foreign Office
Political Career: MP for Maidenhead 1997-present, Shadow PPS @ Foreign Office 1999-2001, Shadow Minister for Europe 2001-2003, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development 2003-2005, Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs 2005-2007

[Annette Burton]

Editing to Shadow Defence Secretary 2005-2007 as I note Anne Carswell claimed Foreign Sec in the period before me.

[Annette Burton]

 

 

Annette Imelda Juliet Burton (née Deighton) was born on 3rd January 1944. Her father, Sir Brigham Deighton, was a senior civil servant at the War Office, and her mother, Imelda Deighton, a devoted housewife.

 

Annette attended Roedean School, where she was particularly gifted in history and sports. She went on to study at the University of Oxford, graduating with first class honours in a bachelor of law. Whilst at Oxford Annette met Clive Burton, also studying law, who she married at the age of 21.

 

After a break in her studies to bear three children, Annette spent a year in the United States to study for her master’s degree at Harvard University. Returning to England at the age of 26, Annette took the civil service entrance exam and passed, becoming a junior legal secretary at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. She would work at the Foreign Office for the next 23 years, with her career culminating in a posting as Assistant Under Secretary at the FCO until her retirement in 1993.

 

Following her departure from the civil service, Annette became increasingly involved in national politics - working part-time with the Conservative Research Department between 1994 and 1995 and providing pro bono legal advice to Conservative Parliamentarians throughout the period leading up to 1997. She was asked personally by John Major to consider pursuing a career in the House of Commons, and decided to seek the backing of local party members to contest the new seat of Maidenhead. She was successful in gaining the backing of party members, and then of the wider electorate; entering Parliament in 1997.

 

Some media profiles focused on the Burtons’ reputation as a “power couple,” with Annette now an MP and Clive a leading criminal barrister and Queen’s Counsel: the couple’s three children, Juliet, Arthur and Peter, had also entered the legal profession. Although speculation was rife that Clive would join his wife in the Commons at the next election, he did not do so and by 2005 had been appointed  a High Court Judge.

 

In 1999 Annette was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to John Maples, and later Francis Maude. In 2001 she became Shadow Minister for Europe opposite Keith Vaz, and played a key role in articulating the Conservative Party’s key 2001 general election message of protecting pound sterling and opposing British entry into the euro. Annette was openly dismayed at William Hague’s resignation following a second landslide defeat for the party, saying that “[he] will go down in history as one of the best Prime Ministers we never had.” Following the election, Annette suggested that the Conservative Party ought to undergo an extensive rebranding exercise in the hope of winning future majorities, claiming that “the word Conservative has become toxic in many parts of the UK” and suggesting that “Unionist Party” might be an alternative monicker. Annette supported Michael Portillo’s candidacy for the leadership in the first and second ballots, and then voted for Kenneth Clarke. She was therefore surprised to be asked to continue in her role as Shadow Europe Minister by incoming leader Iain Duncan-Smith, though she agreed so to do.

 

With Duncan-Smith’s departure in 2003, Annette was named by some outsiders as a potential dark horse candidate for the leadership - but in her own words, the speculation was “never serious,” and in any event Annette quickly espoused her support for the unopposed candidate Michael Howard. Her loyalty was rewarded upon his coronation with elevation to the shadow cabinet proper for the first time, as Shadow International Development Secretary. She would serve in this role for two years, during which time her profile grew.

 

In 2005 incoming leader David Cameron asked Annette to serve as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, attracting some criticism given her apparent lack of experience or knowledge in the role. Annette was further criticised when she pledged to reduce Ministry of Defence running costs by 25% should the Conservatives be elected to government. Annette supported the 2007 Iraq troop surge and called upon the British government to make its own commitment to enhancing the British presence in Iraq in support of the United States. In the period 2006-7 Annette spent a great deal of time in Washington D.C; with Tony Blair still extremely popular in America and widely credited for his response to the September 11 attacks, and David Cameron and his platform by contrast almost completely unknown, Annette’s aim was to reassure American policymakers that a Conservative government in the UK would maintain support for shared interests including the ongoing military campaigns in the middle east.

 

Speaking candidly about the trips in an interview with The Sunday Times, Annette admitted that she was “between a rock and a hard place” on the question of transatlantic relations: “disengagement is broadly what people in Britain think they want and there is pressure on me to bend that way; across the water, people are very fearful that a Conservative government will bend too far.” Annette notably opposed European military integration, pledging to withdraw UK funding from “wasteful EU bureaucracies and spend it directly on the armed forces.”

 

Annette’s husband, Clive, is a High Court Judge. The couple own an apartment in Kensington and a house in Maidenhead.