Graham Brady

Graham Brady is a British politician and a Member of Parliament (MP) from the constituency of Altrincham and Sale West. He is a member of the Conservative Party. Located in Greater Manchester, the Altrincham and Sale West constituency was created in 1997. Since then, it has been won by Graham Brady all along. That’s a period of more than two decades. Graham has continuously won Altrincham and Sale West from 1997 to 2019. The largest vote share ever for Graham was 53% in 2015. It dropped to 51% in 2017 and 48% in 2019 election.

However, Brady still has a comfortable lead over his nearest opponent. In 2019 general election, Brady defeated Andrew Western of Labour Party by a margin of more than 6k votes.

Early life and education

Graham was born on May 20, 1967. He was born in Salford, Lancashire, England. His schooling was at Altrincham Grammar School. After that, Graham joined University of Durham. He studied law and completed his Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1989. Graham is married to Victoria Lowther and has two grown-up children.

Graham started out in his professional journey working as a public relations consultant with Shandwick Plc. Later in 1990, he joined the Centre for Policy Studies. In 1992, he was given the role of a director at Waterfront Partnership. He worked as a public affairs professional for 5 years till 1997 when he became an MP for the first time.

Political career

Graham had avid interest in political matters since an early age. When he was just 16 years of age, Graham was actively involved in a campaign to protect local grammar schools. Graham’s first big break in politics came in 1997 when he was chosen to represent the Altrincham and Sale West parliamentary constituency. Graham was given the responsibility after veteran Conservative MP Fergus Montgomery retired.

Graham’s first election was the toughest ever for him. He received 43.2% of the votes, which is the lowest of all elections that were to follow. He won by a thin margin of 1505 votes. He defeated his nearest rival Jane Baugh of Labour Party, who received 20,843 votes. He was the youngest Conservative MP in 1997 election. Since then, Graham has worked to improve his vote share. It kept on increasing till 2015. The numbers have dipped only in 2017 and 2019 elections, primarily due to the politics around Brexit. Graham had come out in support of Brexit in 2016 EU referendum.

During his career, Graham has taken up various roles and responsibilities. It includes opposition spokesman on employment, parliamentary private secretary, a whip, Shadow Minister for Schools, Leader of the Opposition, Shadow Europe Minister, member of the Treasury Select Committee, Governor of Manchester Metropolitan University, and Vice President of the Enterprise Forum. Graham has also received the title of Backbencher of the Year.

Personal pursuits

Graham remains committed to welfare of society. He is actively involved in projects that support people with learning disabilities.