Christopher Tugendhat

Christopher Samuel Tugendhat, Baron Tugendhat (born 23 February 1937) is a British Conservative Party politician, business man, company director, journalist and author. He was a Member of Parliament from 1970–77, then a member of the European Commission, and in 1993 was appointed as a life peer, with a seat in the House of Lords, in which he remains active.

Tugendhat's family background includes Austrian-Jewish ancestry on his father's side and Anglo-Irish on his mother's. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic. His father, Dr Georg Tugendhat, was born in Vienna, but came to Britain after the First World War to pursue a doctorate at the London School of Economics, and while there married Maire Littledale. Georg Tugendhat traced his paternal origins to the town of Bielitz in Silesia, which until 1918 was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and is now in Poland.

Tugendhat was educated at Ampleforth College and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, then took up a career in journalism, becoming a features editor and leader writer for The Financial Times from 1960-70. In 1970 he was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for the Cities of London and Westminster, remaining in the House of Commons until 1977, when he resigned after being appointed as a member of the European Commission. He was first appointed to the commission by a Labour government over the head of the nominee of the Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher, but four years later, as prime minister, Thatcher reappointed him, and he served as vice-president of the Commission from 1981 until 1985.

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