Ancram, Michael Andrew Foster Jude Kerr (1945- )

British Conservative politician. He became MP for Devizes, in Wiltshire, in 1992 and previously was MP for Berwick and Lothian in February-October 1974 and Edinburgh South 1979-87. He was a minister of state in the Northern Ireland Office 1994-97. With the Conservatives in opposition following the 1997 and 2001 general elections, he served as party chair 1998-2001, shadow secretary for international affairs 2001-2005, and party deputy leader and shadow secretary of state for defence 2005. He was viewed as an important moderating influence as the party faced pressure to move ever further to the right.

Born into an aristocratic Scottish Catholic family, he was educated at a French-speaking Swiss school and Oxford University, where he studied history. Later, he trained in law at Edinburgh University and became an advocate before the Scottish Bar in 1970 and a Queen's Counsel in 1996.

He has the title of Earl of Ancram and his wife, Lady Jane Fitzalan-Howard, is daughter of the 16th Duke of Norfolk.