Maria Caulfield

Born to working-class Irish immigrants in Wandsworth, Maria Caulfield has been the Conservative MP for Lewes since 2015. After a more-than-decade-long career in nursing on the south coast, Caulfield was successfully elected to the Brighton & Hove city council in 2007. However, she had experienced a number of subsequent election losses before defeating the incumbent Liberal Democrat, Norman Baker, in Lewes at the aforementioned general election of 2015. She now holds the post of assistant whip for the Conservative party. On the eve of the first coronavirus lockdown in March 2020, Caulfield boldly pledged to return to frontline nursing in response to the virus outbreak but came under fire two months later for unwittingly re-sharing far-right propaganda on her Twitter account. She is an avid Arsenal fan and stakeholder in Lewes Football Club.