Robert Lyon-Burke

Robert Samuel Lyone-Burke, MP, Ph.D. (Cantab) (born 6 April, 1946) is a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament for Edinburgh Pentlands. He is the cousin of the 18th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne as well as the son of a wealthy Scottish investment banker and the daughter of a wealthy London Socialite. Lyon-Burke is a member of the Conservative Monday Club and is widely viewed as being on the right wing of the Conservative Party.

Early Life
Lyon-Burke was born in Edinburgh to an Anglican family which include the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. His father, Sir Samuel Roger Lyon-Burke, KCMG, was a wealthy investment banker who operated out of Edinburgh under the Royal Bank of Scotland and his mother, Sabrina Lyon-Bruke (nee Fuller), was the inheritor of a significant hotel fortune and is the daughter of a once-prominent London socialite. The Lyon-Burke family shared their time between Edinburgh and Buckinghamshire He was educated at George Watson's College and the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with a degree in Economics and pursued a post-graduate degree in the same subject at Cambridge before taking up a position at the University of Rhodesia as an associate professor in 1970. He sat as Chair of the Economics Faculty at UofR for three years between 1978 and 1981 before he resigned his position and returned home to take up a position at his alma mater.

Member of Parliament
In 1998, Lyon-Burke was nominated by his home Conservative constituency association in Edinburgh Pentlands to replace Sir Malcolm Rifkind as the nominee for the seat after Rifkind took a lucritive position as Executive Director of Unilever. He was successful in his election bid and has been serving as the MP for Edinburgh Pentlands since. During this time, Lyon-Burke has chiseled a reputation for himself as being a socially conservative, economically liberal member.

Personal Life
Robert Lyon-Burke is married to Celia Lyon-Burke (b. 1953), a former Rhodesian whom he met while she was a Master's student at the University of Rhodesia. The couple have three children: Robert II (b. 1982), Samuel II (b. 1984), and Candice (b. 1986).The family lives in Edinburgh where Celia works for the Royal Bank of Scotland; Robert has a small appartment in London where he stays while working in Westminster.