Rodney Ingrahm

Rodney Ingrahm

Constituency	Islington
Portfolio	Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
Birthdate	11 August 1961
Place of Birth:	Shelbourne, Rimbaldt, UK
Spouse	Sarah Hall
Profession	Politician, Economist
Political party	Conservative Party (CP)
Languages spoken	English and Søskendansk
Degrees	Master's of the Arts in Political Economics

Rodney Adair Ingrahm (b. 11 Aug. 1961 in Shelbourne) is a Conservative politician in the United Kingdom serving as the MP for Islington since 1992 and currently acts as the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Personal Life

Early Years

Born to Daniel and Elizabeth Ingrahm on 11 August 1961, Rodney developed an acute attachment to the sea from his father, welder for Vickers Shipbuilding and Nautical Engineering Plc. The low income earned by his father and mother, who worked as a secretary for Empire Financial, meant Rodney attended the Shelbourne public school system despite what educators and school administrators noted was an above-average intelligence; according to recent interviews, the future politician and academic took it upon himself to teach himself.

Education

After passing lower levels of education with flying colours, Ingrahm decided to apply for the prestigious Talston College where he aimed to pursue a bachelor’s degree in economics along with a bachelor’s degree in military history, a hobby interest since his father’s work on frigates for VSNE. Although given a sizeable grant by the school, the young Ingrahm was left lacking the financial wherewithal to pay the balance and so signed up for the Royal Navy Collegiate Officer Programme. The programme was designed to recruit bright and capable young men and women for service in the Royal Navy by providing a grant for their collegiate education.

At Talston, Ingrahm served as editor of the student paper and met his future wife, Sarah Hall. In his senior year, he was contacted by the Conservative Party to work on an advisory board for a local politician running for Parliament. Although the candidate lost, the experience was credited by Ingrahm as being formative and planting the seed of politics in his mind.

Royal Navy

Following his graduation, Ingrahm was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. His first posting was onboard the frigate HMS Pine where he served as weapons officer. For the following four years he would serve with distinction becoming the Lieutenant-Commander of the destroyer HMS Hastings and then Commander, and ship’s captain, of the frigate HMS Cherry. However, after four years of service Ingrahm retired from the Royal Navy and was made an honourary captain.

Professional Career

Returning home forced Ingrahm to find an employer, which required moving to Philadelphia, which was rapidly becoming the Commonwealth’s financial capital. Ingrahm was hired by the FitzhughCoopers-Easlyn Financial Group, a Hamptonian financial services company, where Ingrahm worked as a long-term investment strategist. While working for the company, Ingrahm spent two years in Portshire before returning to head the firm’s local corporate accounts division, where he excelled for three more years. In those three years, he returned to academia, specifically Crowe University in Philadelphia where he earned his master’s degree in political economics.

Politics

In 1992, while working at FitzhughCooper-Easlyn, the Conservative Party approached Ingrahm once more—this time not to work on an advisory board but rather to run for the constituency of Islington, where the longtime Conservative MP was retiring and where the party needed an intellectual heavyweight to fight off a challenge from a Democratic Socialist businessman.

Hobbies and Interests

Ingrahm is regarded by many as an excellent public speaker though simultaneously private and introverted. He has admitted in numerous interviews to being a teetotaler with a vice for unhealthy consumption of tea. For leisure, he is an avid fan of chess, crossword puzzles, and literature. He owns a small sailboat that he keeps in a marina in Islington and occasionally authors essays on economics topics as well as occasional literary criticisms. Ingrahm has also admitted to being an agnostic.

Parliamentary Career

Entrance

Ingrahm came to Parliament in 1992 as the MP for Islington despite the collapse of Conservative Victoria Clarke’s government. He served upon the backbenches until 1997 when he was made a member of the shadow cabinet for Trade and Industry where he advocated for a much greater rate of privatisation than that which the government of Prime Minister Reginald Baker had committed itself.

With the rise of Alistair Tetley and the Democratic Socialist Party, the Conservative Party rallied to its leader Sir David Hughes who would keep Ingrahm at lower shadow ministries such as Environment and Transport until Sir Hughes retired in 2001 to be replaced by Daniel Collins, who elevated Ingrahm to shadow defence secretary.

While Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, Ingrahm criticised the government of Lord Salisbury both in the aftermath of the Novikovian War and – most importantly analysts note – before the conflict for a dependence upon outdated and poorly maintained equipment. Much of the criticism levied by Ingrahm proved well-founded and led, in part, to the successful Conservative effort to replace Daniel Blair, then Defence Secretary, in his home constituency.

Shadow Secretary of State for Defence

Subsequently, as Shadow Defence Ingrahm supported Conservative Party leader Daniel Collins in calling for a review of the Defence Export Regulatory Act, which prohibits the government from procuring weapons systems from foreign firms and/or governments. However, relations between Ingrahm and Collins cooled during the Accession Crisis of 2006 wherein newly appointed Prime Minister Daniel Collins called for the arrest of Lord Salisbury – dispatching military units to assist in the failed capture of Lord Salisbury.

Upon the resolution of the crisis in the favour of the DSP, much of the Conservative government was gutted for collusion with those committing treason against the Crown. However, Ingrahm’s outspoken criticism of excessive force allowed him to remain in Parliament though now as a frontbencher for a significantly defeated party.

Resurgence

With the entry of Benjamin Yorke, son of former president David Yorke, into Parliament, Ingrahm failed in a bid to become leader of the Conservative Party and was instead briefly moved to the foreign affairs portfolio. He accepted the post given the party’s need for an experienced hand at one of the most important portfolios. However, by mid-2006, Lord Uxbridge expressed an interest in returning to the forefront of politics and did so by taking the position from Ingrahm, who was given instead the position of Shadow Chancellor.

Recently, Ingrahm has taken to more public criticisms of the Salisbury administration specifically on areas of personal liberties and economic policy. At a party fundraising speech in Regal, Ingrahm blasted the Democratic Socialists for their plans to ban sales of tobacco and limit the consumption of alcohol as an attack on the “right to choose freely without fear of the stick of the state.” Recent polls have also indicated that Ingrahm’s name and face are becoming well-known with the Oceanian public, nearly as much as the Conservative leader Benjamin Yorke.

Trivia

• Ingrahm’s time spent working in Portshire makes him eligible to apply for Hamptonian citizenship for the remainder of his life. As of 2006, he has not filed the requisite paperwork nor displayed any interest in doing so.
• In 1981, Ingrahm led his school chess team to victory over Hillcrest University, current Prime Minister Salisbury's alma mater.