South African-born English politician, journalist and broadcaster Matthew Parris was BOTD in 1949. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa to English parents, he grew up in several British-controlled colonies including Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Swaziland, Cyrpus and Jamaica. He studied at Cambridge University, and Yale. He joined the British Conservative Party, based on his admiration for the villainous pigs in George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm: “I never liked them,” he later wrote, “but their final triumph taught me that idealism is not enough.” After studying at Yale University, he returned to England, working for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office before leaving in 1976 to pursue a career in politics. In 1979, he was elected to Parliament in the Conservative Party’s sweep to power, led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He eventually became Thatcher’s correspondence secretary, joining a series of gay sycophants in her inner circle. He claims to have come out as gay in 1984 during a late night debate in the House of Commons, which apparently went unnoticed by his colleagues and media. Later that year, he took part in a TV documentary requiring him to live on the state social security benefit for a week, which came to an embarrassing end when he ran out of money for the electricity meter. He left politics in 1986 to host the ITV series Weekend World, and became a newspaper columnist, broadcaster and travel writer. He has claimed to be an opponent of Thatcher’s Section 28 law, which prohibited local authorities from promoting homosexuality, and joined (and later claimed to co-found) the gay rights lobby group Stonewall. In 2021, his column in The Times of London criticised Stonewall for their recent policy shift towards trans advocacy. His comments were widely criticised, with gay journalist Nicholas de Jongh accusing Parris of misrepresenting his involvement with Stonewall and his anti-Section 28 activism. In 2024, he ended his association with The Times, though continues to host BBC Radio 4’s long-running Great Lives biography series. Parris has been in a relationship with fellow Tory journalist Julian Glover since 1995, entering into a civil partnership in 2006.