"Duracell Bunny" Tom Tugendhat Strives To Show He's More Than Just The "Posh" One Nation Tory

The former security minister is firmly marked as a One Nation candidate, but has been branching out to find support, even if most is outside of Parliament.

The biography

Tom Tugendhat, 51, was born to French mother Blandine de Loisne and British father Sir Michael, an eminent High Court judge now retired. His uncle Christopher was a former Conservative MP and European commissioner, now sitting in the Lords. Tugendhat, it’s safe to say, is from classic Tory stock.

His paternal grandfather came to the UK from Vienna to study, converting from Judaism to Catholicism when he married. It wasn’t until Tugendhat entered Parliament, after experiencing questioning of his surname, that he really considered himself Jewish.

Growing up in London and Sellindge in Kent, he attended top private school St Paul’s in the capital, and went on to study theology at Bristol University, followed by a master’s degree in Islamic studies at Cambridge, which included learning Arabic in Yemen.

Tugendhat then lived in Beirut, working as a journalist, setting up a public relations firm, before returning to London to work in management consultancy. After that he joined the Territorial Army, becoming a member of the Intelligence Corps – thanks to his Arabic – in time to go to Iraq with the Royal Marines in 2003, by which time he was 30. He received an MBE for his efforts. Working as a Foreign Office diplomat in Afghanistan, he went on to support the then chief of defence staff Lord (David) Richards as his military assistant. It was in Afghanistan that he met and befriended a future fellow MP, although on the government side, Dan Jarvis. The pair have remained close since and, in their time as ministerial opposites as security ministers (a role, the seriousness of which, prompted Tugendhat to cut out alcohol), have continued to work collegiately.

Tugendhat was furious at the chaos of the evacuation from Kabul in 2021 and gave a personal speech in the Commons that was widely praised. Two years after leaving the army in 2013, he was elected MP for Tonbridge and Malling in Kent. The constituency was the first safe seat advertised in advance of the 2015 election for new candidates, which meant a competitive selection process.

It shows, one friend claims, “that in the eyes of associations and CCHQ, Tom has been a rising star from the moment he secured his selection”. A “strategic thinker”, as one of his fellow MPs brands him, some colleagues have questioned whether that also applies politically to his recent positioning on the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), saying during the leadership contest that it requires reform and is prepared to leave the organisation, despite previous scepticism and his firm One Nation rooting.

You might disagree, but you know he won’t pull the wool over your eyes

But he raised specific issues with the international court back in 2015/16, when he flagged concerns over the persecution, by expensive lawyers, of British troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also wrote two reports for UK think tank Policy Exchange on ‘lawfare’ where the ECHR’s extra-territorial application and the UK’s failure to ask for a derogation badly impacted the issue.

It led to the then home secretary Theresa May at party conference – advised by Nick Timothy, now an MP and supporter of Tugendhat – to declare that “we will never again – in any future conflict – let those activist, left-wing human rights lawyers harangue and harass the bravest of the brave”.

During his time as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which he was first elected to in 2017, he took a hawkish stance on China and Russia, lamenting declining western influence. A key player in the China Research Group of Tory MPs, Tugendhat opposed Huawei’s role in building 5G networks in the UK and lobbied for an amendment to the Trade Bill as part of recognition of the Uyghur genocide.

He was banned from China as a result, along with a series of fellow MPs. When the then prime minister Boris Johnson – with whom he had tense relations – invited the sanctioned to the Downing Street rose garden in the aftermath, Tugendhat was not among them. Formerly security minister under both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, he has attended cabinet but never served as a cabinet minister.

The pitch

Tugendhat’s reputation as a centrist proved an obstacle to his 2022 leadership bid – a reverse from which he has clearly learnt. Opposition to Covid passports during the pandemic, in a “defence of Conservative principles”, has served to attract some from the party’s right – and he is continuing to court them with his position on the ECHR, declaring he would be prepared to leave and cap the UK’s net migration at 100,000 a year. Tugendhat said that he wanted to be prime minister, not leader of the opposition, at his launch.

One friend says: “He has always been someone who sticks to his guns and it means you can trust him. You might disagree, but you know he won’t pull the wool over your eyes. He will always tell it like he sees it. It’s quite unusual in politics.”

Pitching himself as the law-and-order candidate, he has said the country needs a bigger, “tougher” police force and, like Cleverly, has committed to boost defence spending to three per cent of GDP.

Alongside Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the then MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, he broke ministerial ranks earlier in the year to push for increased defence spending.

She says: “We’ve talked about it for quite a long time inside government. But, bluntly, we were not getting the cut through with No 10 or the Treasury.

“He is a team player … but we had tried for months to get a shift and we weren’t touching the sides, so we realised we’re going to have to scream.”

Tugendhat has vowed to “make the Conservative Party a serious force again”, making a point to apologise for the conduct of his party when in government.

The hinterland

Tugendhat splits his time between the constituency and home in Clapham with his wife Anissia, with whom he shares two children, Beatrice and Adam. Anissia hails from a French diplomatic family – her father was the French ambassador to Beijing and Moscow – and works as a senior judge in France, often hopping to Paris for the day to work.

It means he is often alone with the children in the morning and once admitted to changing their daughter’s nappy while midway through a BBC Radio 4 grilling from John Humphrys.

Fond of long walks with his children, the eldest of whom has recently expressed a strong interest in sword-fighting and castles, Tugendhat still has an army mentality to keeping fit and healthy.

“There is definitely a world in which she [Anissia] is the money. It’s Tom’s determination to service that keeps them attached to UK politics,” one friend says.

“Close friends in Parliament are limited,” one supporter says. “He is a bit like Rishi in that he keeps people to a degree of separation.”

He was not this career politician and still he’s more comfortable away from the Westminster bars, having dinner in Pizza Express

He has spoken of seeking a balance in his life between the parable of the Good Samaritan, the importance of kindness to one’s fellow man, and that of the talents, often seen as a lesson on the responsible use of one’s abilities, resources and gifts.

“My politics sit somewhere in the middle, in that I believe it’s important for people to take risks and achieve and fulfil their talents, but I also think we need to protect the most vulnerable,” he previously remarked.

A friend says: “His faith is very important to him … He has never not found a church to go to on a Sunday or a Saturday evening.”

A firm Remainer in the EU referendum, and close friends with the ambassador to Italy, Ed Llewellyn, Tugendhat has said he “does not regret voting Remain” – and there is no sign he would ever resign his own dual French nationality.

In one of his speeches – which often lapse into multiple languages including Arabic, Dari and French – he began by casting back to the US Declaration of Independence and the unalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. The last, he said, was the most noble.

What others say

Anne-Marie Trevelyan says: “He’s not precious about political perfection. He always wants to find a solution that will deliver.”

Another friend adds: “He was not this career politician and still he’s more comfortable away from the Westminster bars, having dinner in Pizza Express.”

That doesn’t mean to say he is not adept at the Westminster scene – he’s hosted donor and fundraising events for his leadership race at the Carlton Club.

Trevelyan describes him as “a guardian character”, adding that she has “heard him stand up for people who weren’t in the room, defending them because someone was mouthing off”.

She says: “He is absolutely robust and honest. And his family is at the heart of everything he lives and breathes.”

Certain air of posh confidence

Another friend suggests he is like a “Duracell bunny, full of energy and with the expert skill of being able to sleep anywhere”, adding that “he has put his all into the contest”.

But one minister who worked alongside Tugendhat accused him of sometimes being “lazy in his preparation”, resting on his laurels and with a “certain air of posh confidence”.

Said to have been nicknamed ‘Tom Tugendtwat’ by the then chief whip Mark Spencer after a series of rebellions over aid and trade, and his criticism of the Kabul evacuation operation, Tugendhat has gained strong support from various wings of the party, even if they are not all in Parliament now.

Backers include former One Nation chair Damian Green and self-described ‘Brexit hard man’ Steve Baker.

Trevelyan even suggests that Tugendhat’s campaign team would follow him if he jumped off a cliff.

“They would literally jump off behind him out of curiosity to see what he was going to do,” she says.

“It’s a sense of the energy and compassion in the team.”

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