About Douglas
Douglas was first elected to Parliament in 2005 by a slender 920 votes. He was returned as MP for Clacton in 2010 with a 12,000 majority.
Co-author of best selling book,
The Plan; 12-months to renew Britain, Douglas is an advocate of political reform.
In recognition of his efforts to bring change to Westminster, in 2009
Spectator readers voted him Parliamentarian of the Year and
The Daily Telegraph nominated him a Briton of the Year.
Douglas had a proper job in business before politics, working in commercial television and then fund management.
Born in 1971, Douglas' home was in Uganda until his late teens, where his parents worked as doctors amongst some of the world's poorest people. He read history at the University of East Anglia and King's College, London.
Douglas first stood for Parliament against Tony Blair, as the Conservative candidate for Sedgefield in 2001 - cutting Blair's majority by over 7,500 votes. Married to Clementine, with a daughter, Douglas is keen on swimming, running and riding. He is an enthusiastic - if not always successful - gardener.
Douglas co-wrote "Direct Democracy; an agenda for a new model party", which the Spectator magazine described as "One of the founding texts for the new, revitalised Toryism... written by some of the brightest young Conservative thinkers". It included many ideas - such as directly elected police commissioners - which have since been taken up by the Coalition.
According to Conservative commentator Charles Moore, not only is "the localism of the Carswell/Hannan "direct democracy" movement now good Coalition orthodoxy", but Downing Street advisers have "enthusiastically lifted several bits of The Plan".
He blogs each day at www.TalkCarswell.com
and has written for the Financial Times, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, News of the World and Spectator, as well as appearing on the Politics Show, Newsnight, Sky and Radio 4's Week in Westminster
and Westminster Hour.