Peter Bottomley

Peter Bottomley (born 30 July 1944 is a British politician. He is Conservative member of Parliament for Worthing West, and husband to fellow MP, Virginia Bottomley: they have a son and two daughters.

He studied economics at Trinity College in Cambridge University and then became a lorry driver (hence his membership of the Transport and General Workers Union) before moving on to industrial sales and industrial relations.

He contested and lost the West Woolwich parliamentary seat in the February and October 1974 general elections, before winning it in a by-election in 1975 and retaining it (renamed as Eltham) until the 1997 general election when he instead stood and won in Worthing West.

Under Margaret Thatcher, he was a junior minister in the Department of Employment from 1984, moving to become Minister of Roads and Traffic at the Department of Transport in 1986, and to the Northern Ireland Office in 1989. He was dismissed in 1990, since when he has been a backbencher, described as a maverick but not a rebel.

In 2002-03 he was Master of the Worshipful Company of Drapers.