Conservative Party candidates for Euro elections
Conservatives
Daniel Hannan MEP
AN MEP who became an unexpected internet star, he clocked up a massive one million hits on YouTube after a heated rant about Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
A journalist and writer he was first elected MEP for the South East region in 1999.
He has been a leader-writer for the Daily Telegraph since 1996, and is a columnist for the German newspaper Die Welt.
Publications include A Treaty Too Far, The Euro: Bad for Business, The case for EFTA and What if Britain votes No?
Born in 1971 into British-Peruvian family in Lima, Peru, Daniel is married with two young children. He studied at Marlborough College and Oriel College, Oxford.
Although he represents the Conservatives, Daniel sits without a pan-European affiliation after he was expelled in February 2008 from the EPP-ED, the group of the European People's Party, accused of “filibustering”, or attempting to delay legislation by talking it out of time.
Richard Ashworth MEP
A farmer on the fringes of the Romney Marshes, he was elected to the South East region in 2004.
He was born in 1947 in Folkestone. He is married with three daughters. Educated at King’s School, Canterbury, he studied agriculture and management in Devon.
He is the chairman of a further education college and serves on several public bodies in that sector. His interests include music, theatre, sport, aviation and country pursuits.
He worked in Canada and New Zealand before establishing a farming business in Sussex. He was a founder director and chairman of United Milk Plc.
He has been chairman of NFU Corporate, the organisation representing Britain’s farmer controlled agri-business and co-operatives in London and Brussels and an advisor to the Minstry of Agriculture.
Nirj Deva MEP
An aeronautical engineer and scientist before becoming an MEP for the South East region in 1999 he was educated at St Joseph's Catholic College, Colombo and Loughborough University.
He was a MP for Brentford & Isleworth from 1992-97. He was PPS to Minister of State, Scottish Office, 1996-97. Since 1985, he has been a HM Deputy Lieutenant for the Lord Lieutenancy of London. He was Chairman of the Bow Group in 1981 and on the Council of the Royal Commonwealth Society from 1976-80.
His interests include voluntary work for St John Ambulance and writing. He was born in 1948 and is married with one child.
James Elles MEP
In European Parliament terms he is one of the old boys of the budget committee having served for 25 years.
He became an MEP in 1994 after a career as a civil servant with the European Commission and was elected to serve the South East region in 1999 after representing the previous areas of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire and before that Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire East.
Born in September 1949, he graduated from Edinburgh University with a BSc (hons) in agriculture.
Born in 1949, James has two children. His interests include golf (he is chairman of the European Parliament’s golfing society), skiing, gardening and music.
James has a home in Great Missenden, Bucks, and Brussels.
Therese Coffey
Find this Wigan-born candidate on the terraces at Wembley cheering England as she says she rarely misses a home game.
She has lived in Hampshire since 1997 where she has served as a town councillor and school governor.
She attended university in Oxford and London, studying chemistry finishing with a PhD and a number of academic papers.
She worked for Mars for 12 years but left the sweetie makers in 2008 to work full-time on the European election campaign.
She has been a European candidate in 2004 and also was a candidate in the 2005 General Election in Wrexham.
She enjoys pub quizzes, Sudoko and Scrabble, Therese's other passion is music and names Muse as her favourite band.
She has a rescue dog called Rizzo.
www.facebook.com/people/Therese_Coffey/551277433
Sarah Richardson
A former international fencer who was the British Under 20 Women’s Foil Champion and now a journalist and editor specialising in education and employment.
She also co-ordinates press, communications and lobbying for the What Makes the Difference? Project which aims to improve the lives of children in care.
The Municipal Journal identified her as one of their ‘40 ones to watch under 40’.
She has worked for the Conservatives as a professional, a candidate at the European and Westminster Parliamentary elections, a volunteer, an activist and a fundraiser for nearly 20 years.
She now enjoys more sedate exercise like yoga and walking in the North Downs near where she lives.
She is married with one child.
Richard Robinson
An international businessman, he has been involved in Conservative politics since joined the Rochester and Chatham Young Conservatives.
He studied economics at Salford university.
He is married, with children and lives in Surrey where he joined his ward committee and became its chairman and chairman of the Surrey Heath Association.
In 2004, he was a candidate on the South East regional list for the European Parliament.
His career in business has run parallel to his work for the Conservative Party: as an investment manager for the Miners' Pension Fund, an investment advisor to the Kuwait Government and, more recently, running his own international investment consultancy. He has run companies in Canada and the United Sates, and in Spain and France as well as the UK.
Tony Devenish
Currently a Westminster city councillor, counting Baroness Thatcher as one of his constituents, he has been an active Conservative for more than 20 years and has stood for Parliament twice.
He works for a European company with offices in Surrey/Middlesex and Hampshire and also travels around Berkshire, Kent, Sussex and Oxfordshire often as well as to the continent on business.
His interests include travel and he has lived and worked in a dozen countries, sports, reading biographies, socialising with friends and family.
Niina Kaariniemi
Born in Finland she came to Britain in 1988 and lives in Witney, Oxfordshire, with her two children, Joshua, eight, and Nieko, 16.
She studied for a BA Honours in European Studies with Spanish and also has a post graduate degree in business management.
For the last eight years she has worked for the Conservative administration at Oxfordshire County Council.
She has been involved in politics and voluntary work since the age of 14 - joining her grandparents fighting for better conditions for war veterans.
She became South East co-ordinator for Women2Win, the campaign to get more women Conservatives into Parliament, in 2006, board director for a local housing association in 2008.
She speaks Finnish, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese and gets by in Italian and German but would like to learn another language and wants to trek the jungle in the Amazon.
Marc Brunel-Walker
No biography available at the moment
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