Laura Sandys
Laura Jane Sandys (; born 5 June 1964) is chair of the European Movement UK and a British Conservative Party politician. She served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Thanet between the 2010 UK general election and 2015.
Sandys stood down at the general election in 2015.
Early life
The daughter of Duncan Sandys through his second marriage to Marie-Claire (née Schmitt), Sandys was born on 5 June 1964 and christened on 17 July 1964 in the Crypt Chapel of the Palace of Westminster. Her father was a member of parliament, and later a life peer, who served as Defence Secretary in Harold Macmillan's government and was also the son-in-law of Winston Churchill (through his first marriage to Diana Churchill).
Career before Parliament
In the 1980s Sandys was a Director of Barter Group, an organisation doing business by exchange of goods or services rather than cash in the former Eastern Bloc. She moved on to lead the Parliamentary Unit at the Consumers' Association. Sandys has also worked in public relations; since 1992 she worked through Laura Sandys Associates, also known by its abbreviation LSA. She later became Head of Communications at the Shopping Hours Reform Council, an organisation which promotes allowing shops to open on Sundays. She is also a journalist, also writing for newspapers, and a commentator appearing on television and radio on a wide range of issues, including urban development and the Iraq war. She contributed the opening chapter Paul Cornish's book The War in Iraq (October 2004).
