David John Warburton FRSA (born 28 October 1965)[1] is a British former politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Somerton and Frome from 2015 until his resignation in 2023.

[7] After a variety of jobs, including several years as a shop assistant, a cleaner and a van driver[8] while singing, playing lead guitar and keyboards in a succession of rock bands,[citation needed] he studied at the Royal College of Music, where he was a recipient of the Octavia Scholarship.

As chief executive, he expanded TMS to become a service provider, offering website and mobile website branding and design, mobile content and its associated delivery, integrated payment systems and customer service on behalf of brands including the BBC, Celador, News International, Motorola,[9] Real Networks, MTV Europe,[10] and Kazaa.

With Warburton as executive chairman, Pitch launched the first example of a mobile social network with ancillary content, and in 2007 was listed by The Sunday Times as the UK's 6th fastest growing technology company, having achieved sales growth of 326% a year.

Warburton featured both on the front cover of the business newspaper City A.M. in August 2006 under the heading "The musician who became lord of the ringtones" and in its "Job of the Week" section.

[29] As candidate, he campaigned for improved broadband,[30] local charities,[31] rail connectivity,[32] new schools,[33] dualling of the arterial A303 road through Somerset,[34] and reduced duty, regulation and VAT on pub sales.

He was listed in Daily Telegraph and Guardian articles in 2015 criticising the practice of MPs employing family members, on the grounds that it promotes nepotism.

[49] In January 2016, the Labour Party unsuccessfully proposed an amendment in Parliament that would have required private landlords to make their homes "fit for human habitation".

According to Parliament's register of interests, Warburton was one of 72 Conservative MPs who voted along party lines against the amendment who personally derived an income from renting out property.

The Conservative Government had responded to the amendment saying they believed homes should be fit for human habitation but did not want to pass the new law that would explicitly require it.

[50] In September 2019, Warburton said,[51] in response to Adam Boyden, his Liberal Democrat opponent, that his family had received death threats over the issue of Brexit.

[54] In November 2022 the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards found that Warburton had breached the MP's code of conduct after failing to declare a £150,000 loan from a Russian businessman Roman Joukovski.

[56][57] The following month, a Sunday Times investigation claimed Warburton failed to disclose a £25,000 donation from a billionaire, to have used a forged document in an £800,000 mortgage application, and to have concealed an interest in a property firm.

She is the daughter of the diplomat Merrick Baker-Bates CMG, former Deputy High Commissioner to Malaysia and British Consul General in Los Angeles.