[2] His work on the blog earned him a reputation for wielding significant influence over the Conservative Party, the centre-left New Statesman magazine calling him the "authoritative commentator or Tory politics" and the 28th most powerful right-wing figure in Britain.

[4] He was raised in East Sheen, and was privately educated at the Cranleigh School, Surrey before attending the University of York where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature in 1981.

In 1983 he was the chairman for the Federation of Conservative Students, and was appointed as a director of public affairs at Extel Consultancy in 1984, before becoming a researcher for two years to Tom King, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and MP for Bridgwater, in 1985.

He was a briefly a member of the policy unit at the City of Westminster Council in 1988 before training as a novice monk at Quarr Abbey in Ryde on the Isle of Wight.

He also served for a year as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chairman of the Conservative Party David Davis from 2001, and was promoted to the frontbench by Michael Howard in 2003 as a spokesman on work and pensions.