Autumn Lecture Series 2025: Here I stand with Chris Bryant MP

(Monday 20th October 2025)

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Sir Chris Bryant MP is a prominent British Labour politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for Rhondda (and now Rhondda and Ogmore) since 2001. He left the Anglican priesthood in 1991 because he concluded that being gay and being a priest at that time were incompatible. He held various ministerial roles in government from 2008 to 2010, including Deputy Leader of the House of Commons and Under-Secretary of State for Europe and Asia. In opposition, he served in the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Culture Secretary and Shadow Leader of the House of Commons. Knighted in 2023 for political and public service, he currently holds roles as Minister of State for Data Protection and Telecoms, and Minister of State for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, appointed in July 2024. He is also a published author on parliamentary history.

Chris Bryant’s Christian faith has always been a foundational aspect of the values that has stood for and has directly influenced his life choices, his political principles, and his ongoing advocacy for social justice, and for the LGBT+ community, even when it puts him at odds with the institution of the Church.

Chris Bryant has written many books including: The Glamour Boys: The Secret Story of the Rebels who Fought for Britain to Defeat Hitler 2020: (winner of the 2020 Parliamentary Book Award for Best Non-Fiction.) Code of Conduct: Why We Need to Fix Parliament (2023) (a Sunday Times bestseller.) Parliament: The Biography (two volumes) In August 2025 he published his new memoir A Life and A Half: The Unexpected Making of a Politician.

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