About Simon Burns
Sir Simon Hugh McGuigan Burns (born 6 September 1952) is a British politician, who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Chelmsford since being elected at the 1987 general election until the 2017 general election. Burns resigned from being Minister of State for Transport in October 2013 to stand in the First Deputy Chairmen of Ways and Means by-election following the resignation of Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans. Returned to Parliament as a Conservative MP in the 2015 election, he was knighted in the 2015 Birthday Honours. Burns announced in January 2016 that he would not be standing at the next general election, reaffirmed when the 2017 general election was declared. == Early life and education == Born on 6 September 1952 in Nottingham, Burns was educated at Christ the King School in Accra, then Stamford School in Lincolnshire, before going up to Worcester College, Oxford, to read Modern History, graduating with a BA (Hons) (Third-class honours, resulting in his nickname "third degree burns") in 1975. He has also received an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy (Hon. PhD) from Anglia Ruskin University. Burns cites following the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s as the point where he became interested in politics, saying "As you looked around the world you had a prime minister in Britain who was about 69, a president in France in his mid-70s and a chancellor in West Germany in his 80s. [Kennedy] had a glamorous family, and conveyed the impression that you could actually do something in politics to improve the lives of citizens. I thought that was cool, and decided that public service would be fantastic".
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.