Nadhim Zahawi
Nadhim Zahawi (b. 1967) is an Iraqi-British politician who currently serves as Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon. He is a member of the Conservative Party.
Early life
Nadhim Zahawi was born on 2 June 1967 in Baghdad, at the time part of the socialist Iraqi Republic under the ruler Abdul Rahman Arif. He comes from prominent family from the city of Khanaqin within the Kurdish Feyli tribe.
Nadhim Zahawi fled to the United Kingdom with his family in 1979, following the rise of Saddam Hussein.
Career
1990s and 2000s
Nahdim Zahawi was elected to Wandsworth Council in 1994, where he served until 2010.[1]
In 1997, aged 29, Zahawi was an unsuccessful Conservative Party candidate in the general election that May for the south east London constituency of Erith and Thamesmead. On 20.2%, he came a distant second place to Labour's John Austin, who won 62.1% of the vote.[2]
In May 2000, aged 32, Zahawi co-founded YouGov, a market research and data analytics firm, alongside Stephan Shakespeare.
2010s
On 6 May 2010, in that year's UK general election, Nadhim Zahawi was elected as the MP for the constituency of Stratford-on-Avon.[3] This election led to the formation of a coalition government between David Cameron's Conservatives and Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats.
2020s
While Education Secretary in early April 2022, Zahawi said that children are "not snowflakes" and should be allowed to read "challenging" books without censorship, such as To Kill a Mockingbird.[4]