About Jesse Norman

Jesse Norman is the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Hereford and South Herefordshire. He has been married to Kate since 1992, has three children and lives in Hereford City.

Jesse was selected as a parliamentary candidate in December 2006. Since then he has campaigned very actively on key local issues, fighting against the loss of public services and for a stronger voice for Herefordshire in Whitehall and Westminster. His campaigns are regularly featured in the Hereford Times, Hereford Journal and Ross Gazette.

Among other things, he acts as county-wide co-ordinator of the Herefordshire Save Our Post Offices campaign, and set up SchoolsFirst.org.uk as a resource to help all those fighting school closures. He is a trustee of the Kindle Centre in South Wye in Hereford City, and of the Friends of St Mary's in Ross-on-Wye.

Wide experience

Jesse was educated at Oxford University, and has a Masters and PhD from University College London. A highly experienced businessman, he was a Director of Barclays, but left the City in 1997 in order to teach and do research at UCL.

He has a twenty year track record as a political and voluntary campaigner. He has been a school governor of an inner city comprehensive and has worked for nearly a decade with the Roundhouse, an arts centre and urban regeneration project which has so far helped over 12,000 disadvantaged young people. He has a reputation for getting things done, and has personally raised over £500,000 for charitable projects.

Jesse has been a Conservative since university. He worked to help Oliver Letwin MP retain his seat in West Dorset during the 2005 General Election, and stood as a Conservative candidate in the 2006 Council elections. He has acted as a policy adviser to George Osborne MP, the Shadow Chancellor, and to the Shadow Work and Pensions team. Most recently, he took time out to advise Boris Johnson on his successful campaign to become Mayor of London.

High public profile

Jesse is a published author of several books, and has written widely in the national press. His recent book Compassionate Conservatism has been called the "handbook to Cameronism" by the Sunday Times.

He has also written for The Times, Sunday Times, Financial Times, Guardian and Spectator, and has appeared on TV on BBC 1, BBC News 24 and Sky News; and on radio on Start The Week with Andrew Marr, Any Questions? with Jonathan Dimbleby (twice), The Westminster Hour and Analysis. He has also been the subject of profiles in Varsity, BBC Online and Herefordshire Life.