Tom Tugendhat

Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (born 27 June 1973) is a British politician who has served as Shadow Foreign Secretary since 2026. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tonbridge, formerly Tonbridge and Malling, since 2015. A member of the Conservative Party, he previously served in the Cabinet as Security Minister from 2022 to 2024. Born in Westminster, Tugendhat attended St Paul's School. He studied at the University of Bristol and went on to study at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He then briefly worked in Beirut as a journalist for The Daily Star, before becoming an officer in the British Army reserves, the Territorial Army, in 2003; he served in both the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. He later served as one of the military assistants to the Chief of the Defence staff. Tugendhat was elected to Parliament for the Conservative Party as the MP for Tonbridge and Malling in the 2015 general election. He was reelected in both the 2017 general election and the 2019 general election, and was also the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee between 2017 and 2022. Following the resignation of Boris Johnson in July 2022, Tugendhat stood in the Conservative Party leadership election to succeed him. He was eliminated in the third round of parliamentary voting, and subsequently endorsed Liz Truss, serving in her government as Security Minister. Following Truss's resignation the next month, Tugendhat endorsed Rishi Sunak in the October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election and retained his ministerial position in Sunak's cabinet. After the Conservative Party's defeat in the 2024 general election, Tugendhat became Shadow Security Minister in Sunak's shadow cabinet; and after Sunak announced his intention to resign as Leader of the Conservative Party, Tugendhat launched another bid to become party leader. Again, he was eliminated in...