George Gordon Harvey Walden CMG (born 15 September 1939) is an English journalist, former diplomat and former politician for the Conservative Party, who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham from 1983 to 1997 and Minister for Higher Education under Margaret Thatcher.
Walden was educated at Latymer Upper School[1] in Hammersmith, London, at Jesus College, Cambridge, and for post-graduate studies at Moscow University.
Walden joined the Foreign Office in 1962 and worked there as a researcher until 1965, when he went to Hong Kong to study Chinese.
[3] After his sabbatical at Harvard, he was head of the planning staff at the FCO (1982–83), and then left the Diplomatic Service to stand for Parliament.
Walden wrote a column for the Evening Standard 1991–2002 and now writes for various papers as a guest columnist.