Matthew Oakeshott, Baron Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay

Matthew Alan Oakeshott, Baron Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay (born 10 January 1947), is a British investment manager and member of the House of Lords, formerly sitting in Parliament as a Liberal Democrat.

The son of Keith Robertson Oakeshott, CMG, a diplomat, by his wife, Eva Jill (née Clutterbuck), Oakeshott was educated at Charterhouse School before going up to University College, Oxford where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics, graduating in 1968 (MA).

Oakeshott worked in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning of Kenya from 1968 to 1970. During 1970 to 1972, he undertook post-graduate studies at Nuffield College, Oxford, although he did not complete a graduate degree. He joined the Labour Party and served as a Councillor on Oxford City Council.

He stood twice, unsuccessfully, for election to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. As a Labour parliamentary candidate he fought the Horsham and Crawley seat in 1974, and then as the SDP–Liberal Alliance candidate for the seat of Cambridge in 1983.

From 1972 to 1976, Oakeshott was a Parliamentary Assistant to Labour's Roy Jenkins in Opposition: a so-called "Chocolate Soldier" funded by the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust. When Jenkins became Home Secretary, Oakeshott worked as his Special Advisor. Jenkins charged him with keeping 'an eye on the Common Market 'negotiation' by forging a close relationship with George Thomson's cabinet in Brussels, but also to keep him in touch with Labour party feeling and help write speeches and newspaper articles.' He was an instrumental part of the team that wrote the Limehouse Declaration Owen described him as ' an EEC 'federalist'.

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