Clement Freud - Political Career

Political Career

Prior to politics, Freud longed for (given his background and ancestry) a distinct occupation by which he could be acclaimed, rather than just being "the man off the telly"; his chance came in the 1973 Isle of Ely Parliamentary by-election, which he won. He was Liberal Member of Parliament for that constituency (later North East Cambridgeshire) from 1973 to 1987. On his election, he was hailed as the first Jewish Liberal MP for decades (though he had become Anglican at the time of his marriage). His departure from Parliament was marked by the award of a knighthood.

In his column in Racing Post, issue of 23 August 2006, he wrote about his election to Parliament in a by-election: "Politically, I was an anti-Conservative unable to join a Labour party hell-bent on nationalising everything that moved, so when a by-election occurred in East Anglia, where I lived and live, I stood as a Liberal and was fortunate in getting in. Ladbrokes quoted me at 33-1 in this three-horse contest, so Ladbrokes paid for me to have rather more secretarial and research staff than other MPs, which helped to keep me in for five parliaments."

His autobiography, Freud Ego, recalls his election win, and shortly after, when asked by his wife June, "Why aren't you looking happier?", he wrote "It suddenly occurred to me that after nine years of fame I now had something solid about which to be famous... and cheered up no end." During his time as a Member of Parliament, he visited China with a delegation of other MPs, including the grandson of the wartime prime minister Winston Churchill. When Churchill was given the best room in the hotel, on account of his lineage, Freud (in a reference to his own famous forebear) declared it was the first time in his life that he had been "out-grandfathered".