Hamish Falconer

The son of Charlie Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton, who served as the last Lord Chancellor with full power under Tony Blair, Falconer attended Westminster School and then St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in 2008 in Human, Social and Political Science,^[5] before joining the diplomatic service.

Falconer worked in the UK government's Department for International Development from 2009 to 2013, and then the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 2022.^[6] His diplomatic career centred on national security and humanitarian relief, including hostage recovery.^[7][8] Whilst in the Foreign Office, he spent a year at Yale University as a "World Fellow".^[9]

Since leaving the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, Falconer worked as an associate fellow at the IPPR,^[7] and was a Policy Fellow at the think tank Labour Together alongside standing as a candidate for Parliament.^[10][11]

Shortly after being elected as MP for Lincoln in July 2024, he was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.^[3] In this role he was responsible for meeting with high-profile Egyptian-British political activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, describing the task of securing his release from prison as “at the top of my priority list, as well as that of the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister.”^[12] He stated that he was “very glad” when El-Fattah subsequently arrived in the United Kingdom at the end of December 2025.^[13] This proved to be controversial^[14] after historical posts on X (formerly Twitter) by El-Fattah emerged including describing British people as “dogs and monkeys”^[15] as well as apparently endorsing killing Zionists^[16] and the police.^[17]