GRAHAM
RIchard

• 1. Early life and career
• 1.1. International experience

Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham is a British Conservative Party politician, who was first elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gloucester.

Early life and career

The grandson of the cricketer and British Army officer Ogilvie Graham, Graham was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford where he was an exhibitioner in Modern History. Whilst at Oxford University, he was a Cadet with the Oxford University Air Squadron. Graham has played international squash and still plays cricket for Gloucester City Winget Cricket Club and the Gloucestershire Over 50s.

Graham was previously an airline manager, a diplomat and a pensions manager. He started with John Swire and Sons and became general manager of Cathay Pacific Airways in France at 24 and in the Philippines at 26, whilst also Vice-chairman of the board of Airline Representatives. He joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1986, and was Second, later First, Secretary, in the British High Commission Nairobi and then British Trade Commissioner China, First Secretary British Embassy Beijing and HM Consul Macao (1989–1992). Graham joined Barings Bank as its Chief Representative China in 1993, and became a director of Baring Asset Management in 1996.

He was previously a director of the charitable company Care for Children, which organises and trains foster parents for Chinese orphans.

Graham was elected as a Cotswold district councillor in 2003, becoming Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in 2006. He unsuccessfully contested the Conservative Party Stroud Parliamentary nomination and the South West of England in the 2004 European elections.

International experience

Graham has lived and worked in ten countries and speaks eight languages: Indonesian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, French, Malay, Swahili and English.

Graham was the first MP to speak Indonesian in the Chamber, when he spoke during PMQs on 10 October 2018 on the natural disaster at Palu in Indonesia's Sulawesi islands. "Teman yang membantu saat dibutuhkan adalah teman sebenarnya": a friend in need is a friend indeed."

Graham was described by the former Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow on numerous occasions as a "noted Sinologist."