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Nicholas SoamesThe Honourable Arthur Nicholas Winston Soames (born 12 February 1948, Croydon) is a British Conservative politician. He is Member of Parliament for Mid Sussex and Shadow Secretary of State for Defence. His main political interests are defence, international relations, rural affairs and industry. He is the grandson of Winston Churchill and son of Lord Soames. He has been married to Serena Smith since 1993. They have had a son and a daughter. Previously, he married (in 1981) and divorced (in 1988) Catherine Weatherall, with whom he also has a son. Soames is a close friend of Charles, Prince of Wales and publicly criticised Diana, Princess of Wales during the couple's estrangement. He is a rugby union fan and admits being moved to tears by the England team's victory in the Rugby Union World Cup. He says that acts of courage and military bands playing Land of Hope and Glory also cause him to cry (Broadcasting House, BBC Radio 4, 19 September 2004). Career Education and military career After attending St. Aubyns in Sussex, he received his secondary education at Eton College. Later, he studied at Mons Officer Cadet School. He served in West Germany and his native United Kingdom with the 11th Hussars of the British Army. Early career In 1970 he became Equerry to the Prince of Wales. In 1972 he left to work as a stock broker. In 1974, he became a personal assistant; first to Sir James Goldsmith and then in 1976 to United States Senator Mark Hatfield, whose service he left in 1978 to become a director of Lloyds Brokers. Between 1979 and 1981, he was an assistant director of Sedgwick Group. Parliamentary career Soames has been an MP without interruption since the 1983 general election. Before 1997, when his party lost the general election, he was MP for Crawley, and served as Minister of State for the Armed Forces at the Ministry of Defence under John Major. He is now Shadow Secretary of State for Defence and chairman of Framlington Second Dual Trust PLC. Criticisms In 1996, Soames was criticised by comedian Mark Thomas in his Channel 4 television programme, who suggested that Tuesday 14 May 1996 should be National Soames Day. Thomas accused him of dishonestly registering some inherited heirlooms as conditionally exempt works of art, which do not attract inheritance tax if the public has access to them. Thomas claimed the public had not been granted access. The second National Soames Day was observed by some of his detractors on Saturday 28 February 1998. Soames, known as a bon viveur with little appetite for political correctness, clashed with a Jewish businessman at a top Chinese restaurant in summer 2004. Afterwards, The Sunday Times (18 July 2004, p3) dubbed him Fat Boy Dim. It has been suggested that Soames was the unnamed senior Tory at the 2004 party conference who was quoted in The Guardian as allegedly saying that "the trouble is that the Tory party is being run by Michael Howard, Maurice Saatchi and Oliver Letwin, and none of them really know what it is to be English" (The New Statesman and The Sunday Telegraph have printed a similar quote bemoaning the fact that "Saatchi, Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin are in charge; could they know how Englishmen felt?"). Soames' alleged anti-Semitism and general cultural fogeyism seems to put him at odds with much of the modern Tory party. See also External links Soames, Nicholas Soames, Nicholas Soames, Nicholas
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