Dominic Raab grilled on leadership ambitions

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Dominic Raab hosts an oral questions session in the House of Commons today, in which he will answer MPs’ questions on his plans for the justice system. The role of Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Justice is his latest of a string of roles under the Conservative Government, having won his Esher and Walton seat for the first time at the 2010 General Election. Among the topics to be covered this morning are the legal aid system for domestic abuse victims, reforming the UK’s human rights framework and drug use in prisons.

Despite becoming an MP 12 years ago, Mr Raab has been involved in politics for more than 20 years.

After leaving Jesus College, Cambridge with a Masters of Law degree, he worked at Linklaters before joining the Foreign Office in 2000.

His briefs there included leading a team at the British Embassy in The Hague, dedicated to bringing war criminals to justice.

It was during his time there that Mr Raab met Erika Rey, who was a marketing student at the time.

They hit it off from the very beginning, but Erika revealed her now-husband’s small talk nearly blew it early on.

Speaking to The Times in 2019, she said: “I was studying English in London and we met at a party with friends.

“It was an instant attraction. My best friend married his best friend as well, which is really nice.”

The met just a week after Brazil had dumped England out of the 2002 World Cup after a David Seaman blunder handed the South Americans the victory.

Erika recalled: “He actually made a big mistake — he asked if I was from Argentina.

“If you are from Brazil, that is bad.”

Mr Raab was keen enough to endure what Erika described as her “terrible Brazilian timekeeping”.

She admitted sometimes she would make him wait for “up to an hour” before their dates in Covent Garden.

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They endured a long-distance relationship at first. Erika said: “Shortly after, I moved to Madrid and we commuted for a year, but we made sure that we got to see each other very often and that’s when we really got to know each other better.

“I thought he was very interesting, but he was also sweet and romantic.

“I remember he would create really nice dates for us.

“He would prepare picnics in Hyde Park, he would invite me to the theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

“Dom always made sure there was something nice, so I thought he was sweet, romantic in a really English way.”

Within two years of their first meeting, Mr Raab had grown the courage to propose. He got down on one knee on Christmas Eve in 2004, but the date of their wedding is unknown.

The family are bilingual, partly because Erika’s parents do not speak English. Erika, Mr Raab and their two sons all speak Portuguese and English.

Despite their political roots, Mr Raab said it is not a political household. He told The Times that he found paternity leave so important that he is determined to have the law changed so that all men are given two weeks’ leave at 90 percent of full pay.

Likewise, he wishes to change the law so that expectant and new mothers cannot be made redundant during pregnancy and maternity leave.

Erika told the newspaper that she hoped to keep her marketing job even if her husband landed the top job in Downing Street.

She spent several years working at Google, but left this job in 2020 shortly before her husband became de-facto Prime Minister when Boris Johnson was rushed into intensive care with COVID-19.

According to Tatler, Erika brings “much needed glamour to the drab halls of Westminster” and embraces the job of an MP’s wife “with enthusiasm”.

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