The name’s Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax... but 'De-toff' Cameron calls him plain
Richard Drax

By Glen Owen for The Mail on Sunday
Updated: 04:30 EDT, 6 December 2009

He is favourite to win a key marginal seat for the Tories at the General Election. But the man billed as plain Richard Drax on Conservative political posters is the ultimate ‘Dave’s de-toff’.

In fact, the Tory parliamentary candidate’s full name is Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, and he lives in a vast Elizabethan stately home.

Quadruple-barrelled Mr Drax, believed to be a shoo-in for the ultra-marginal seat of South Dorset, has the poshest name in British politics.

Richard Drax, whose full name is Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, and his wife Zara

He married the sister of former Royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke – and his grandfather was the inspiration for Bond villain Hugo Drax.

The news is unlikely to be welcomed by fellow Old Etonian David Cameron, who has been encouraging multi-barrelled members of his party to shorten their names.

Mr Drax, 51, fought off 30 other applicants for the seat, including two women on Tory HQ’s A-list of preferred candidates, after impressing selectors with details of his nine-year Army career and nearly two decades working as a journalist.

Mr Drax lives in Charborough House, Dorset, which has been his family’s seat since Elizabethan times.

Set in 7,000 acres of private land, the house is steeped in history.

In 1686, a group of conspirators gathered there to plan the Glorious Revolution, which two years later led to the toppling of King James II.

His family can trace its aristocratic lineage back to 1439, when Sir Christopher Plunkett became the first Baron of Dunsany, in the Irish peerage, under the family motto Festina Lente – meaning ‘Quick, without impetuosity’.

The Drax family's impressive home - Charborough House in Charborough Park, near Blandford in Dorset

Six of Mr Drax’s ancestors living at the house have been MPs, including Henry Drax, who made the family’s fortune in the 17th Century by running slave plantations in Barbados.

Mr Drax’s grandfather, the second son of the 17th Baron of Dunsany, was Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, KCB, DSO.

Sir Reginald, a friend of James Bond author Ian Fleming, is widely thought to be the inspiration for Hugo Drax – Bond’s antagonist in Moonraker.

The admiral enjoyed a distinguished naval career and was sent to Moscow on the eve of the outbreak of war in 1939 in a doomed effort to forge an anti-Nazi alliance with Russia.

Richard Drax is the eldest son of Sir Reginald’s son, Henry Walter Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, from his marriage to the honourable Pamela, the daughter of Baron Weeks.

Mr Drax’s first marriage was to Zara Legge-Bourke, the daughter of a lady-in-waiting to Princess Anne and the debutante sister of Tiggy Legge-Bourke, the former nanny to Princes William and Harry.

Mr Drax’s daughter, Tamara, is on friendly terms with Harry and was pictured with him after watching him play polo.

His second wife, Eliza, is described in the society bible Debretts as the ‘youngest daughter of Commander James George Greville Dugdale’.

Conservative leader David Cameron was last week revealed to be keen to 'de-toff' his candidates

Last week, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Mr Cameron was accused of trying to ‘de-toff’ his ranks after he asked Tory candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg to shorten her name to ‘Nancy Mogg’.

However, Mr Drax, who served with the Coldstream Guards before working as a journalist for the BBC and now devotes most of his time to the family agricultural business, insists that his ultra-blue-blooded background will not prove a political impediment.

On his campaign website, Mr Drax declares: ‘I am not a professional politician by inclination or training.

'I am just a Dorset man, with some experience of life as a former soldier and journalist, who will fight for you and his country in the years ahead.’

He said yesterday: ‘My full name is on my passport and the electoral roll, but I use Richard Drax for ordinary life.

‘I do come from a very privileged background, but it shouldn’t make any difference at all. The [toffs] row is a red herring, one that Labour always deploys when it is on the
back foot. It is what is in your soul that counts.’

I love both barrels of my 'posh' name

By ANNUNZIATA REES-MOGG, Conservative Candidate for Somerset and Frome

Annunziata Rees-Mogg insists she is proud of her lengthy name

What’s in a name? I have had to face that question all my life.

When I was born, my mother gabbled the news excitedly to her neighbour: for months afterwards, the neighbour thought I had been christened Nancy Arthur.

Ever since, my appellation has continued to annoy and delight in equal measure.

When I started school, my infant classmates couldn’t handle its five syllables – squeaking out ‘Nance’ instead. When I became a journalist, they had to put my name in a specially small font to fit it on the page.

David Cameron has suggested that I should shorten my name to ‘Nancy Mogg’.

A man of integrity, he doesn’t think the public will be fooled about someone’s background, just because their name is made to sound less ‘posh’.

His concern is that it would be too long to fit on political posters.

But I would never consider changing my name. It would suggest I was trying to distance myself from the achievements of my father, William, one of the finest journalists of his generation.

I am also proud of my family’s long association with Somerset, part of which I hope to represent.

Both my grandparents on the Rees-Mogg side were local councillors. I am one of five children and each of us has made a path through life that suits our characters, not one determined by our surname.

My four siblings do not have such unusual names. Someone recently told my sister Emma: ‘Poor you, you got the boring name.’

I am the first to admit my first name is a bit of a mouthful, and I do get fed up with having to spell it out every time I book a haircut or restaurant.

When I was born 30 years ago, just after midnight on March 25, my parents already knew what they wanted to call me.

If I had been a boy, I would have been Sam. Had it been the 24th or 26th, I would have been Mary or Hannah. But March 25 is the Annunciation, one of the great feast days of the Catholic Church.

A name can be something to live up to, or something to overcome: it is part of your identity but not your definition. I think unusual names are better tolerated than they used to be. To judge someone on their name is shallow.

I want to fight for the future of this country. What I am called does not affect my ability to do that.