Brooks Newmark

Early life

Newmark was born in Westport, Connecticut, in the United States, on 8 May 1958 to Howard Newmark and Gilda Gourlay (née Rames). He is of Jewish heritage. He moved to the UK aged nine and attended Caldicott Preparatory School and Bedford School and graduated from Harvard College, receiving a BA in History in 1980 and was a member of the Delphic Club. He was a Research Graduate in Politics at Worcester College, Oxford, from 1980 to 1982, and received an MBA in Finance from Harvard Business School in 1984.

Business interests

Newmark was Vice President in the International Division of Shearson Lehman Brothers from 1984 to 1987, a Managing Director of Newmark Brothers Ltd., a corporate finance advisory company, from 1988 to 1993, and then a director of Stellican Ltd from 1993 to 1998. From 1998 to 2005, Newmark was a senior partner at Apollo Management (UK) LP, an international private equity firm.

He has been a director of Telesis Management Ltd since 2005 and AAA MIP Limited since 2006.

Parliamentary career

Newmark contested Newcastle Central in 1997, and Braintree in 2001. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Braintree (in mid Essex) in the 2005 general election over the Labour incumbent, Alan Hurst, and was re-elected in 2010 with a greater majority.

He served as a Whip for Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Department for International Development, Department for Business, and Innovation & Skills. In opposition, Newmark served as the Foreign Affairs Whip (2009–10) and Treasury Whip (2007-8). Newmark had previously served as a Member of the Treasury Select Committee (2006-7) and the Science & Technology Select Committee (2005-7). Newmark was re-elected onto the Treasury Select Committee in 2012 after 5 years in the Whips' Office. In mid July 2014, Newmark was appointed as the Minister for Civil Society, in the Cabinet Office. In response to a question, following his first public speech in that role, he said that charities should "stick to their knitting" and "keep out of the realm of politics". However, it has been later revealed that these quotations were taken out of context, and in fact suggested that politicians should support charities, but not interfere.

During his time as an MP, Newmark co-founded and co-chaired Women2Win, an organisation established to encourage women into politics and public service. Newmark is credited for increasing the number of Conservative female MPs from 17 to 68 between 2005-2015. He also co-founded the Million Jobs Campaign to address the need for more to be done regarding youth unemployment. In the 2015 budget, the Chancellor abolished National Insurance for anyone 18-25 and newly employed following a recommendation by Newmark.

Life after Parliament

Newmark resigned as Minister for Civil Society on 27 September 2014, a day before the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. This followed allegations, published by the Sunday Mirror, that he had been sexting and sending obscene pictures to a male undercover reporter who was posing as a female to deliberately target Newmark, having failed with various other male MPs, over social media. Fellow Conservative MP Mark Pritchard announced that he would make a formal complaint against the newspaper saying that "questionable techniques" had been involved in the paper's report. Investigations by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) are ongoing. A former contestant on the Swedish television show Sweden's Next Top Model, Malin Sahlen, said that she had no idea the newspaper had used her picture to entrap Newmark and was shocked.

Following further media coverage, Newmark announced he would not seek re-election to Parliament at the forthcoming General election. Former chair of the Press Complaints Commission, Christopher Meyer criticised the Sunday Mirror over the entrapment as did Alan Moses of the IPSO. Other newspapers, including the Sun and The Mail on Sunday were reported to have turned down the story.

Newmark is currently a Research Associate at the University of Oxford in the Department of Politics and International Relations. He is also guest lecturing at the Said Business School on private equity, and frequently travels to universities outside the UK to lecture in either politics or finance. He is the author of various articles on the war in Syria, Brexit, US politics and homelessness.[citation needed]

In April 2016, Newmark was made President of the new Braintree District Community Foundation, an organisation led by local people supporting community projects.[citation needed]

He is currently chairing a report on homelessness at the Centre for Social Justice.[citation needed]

Political views

Newmark's special interests include: Economic Policy, Foreign Affairs (Middle East, India, China and USA); Poverty Reduction & International Development (Micro Finance), Special Needs Education and Women & Equality (Founder and Co-Chairman of Women2Win). Many female candidates in the 2015 general election were subsequently successful in their bid to become MPs.

Publications include: Direct Democracy: An Agenda for a New Model Party (2005); Simply Red; The True State of the Public Finances (CPS, 2006); The Price of Irresponsibility (CPS, 2008) and the Hidden Debt Bombshell (CPS, 2009).

Personal life

He is married to Lucy Keegan (daughter of the military historian Sir John Keegan) and has four sons, Benjamin , Sam, Max and Zachary, and one daughter, Lily.

Newmark is involved in various charities including PARC, a respite centre based in Braintree for Children with severe disabilities, Farleigh Hospice and A Partner in Education, which he founded in 2010.