Anecdotes

Son of billionaire businessman Sir James Goldsmith (1933-1997).

Younger brother of Jemima Khan.

Ex-brother-in-law of Imran Khan.

Younger half-brother of Robin Birley. Nephew of Jane Rayne.

Half-brother-in-law of Lucy Ferry.

His marriage to Sheherazade Ventura-Bentley ended in divorce in 2010 and he remarried in 2013.

Former son-in-law of Viviane Ventura.

He was elected the Conservative Member of Parliament for the London constituency of Richmond Park in 2010, with a majority of over 4,000 votes. At the 2015 General Election, he was returned as M.P. for this area, his majority now increased to over 23,000. However, he resigned in October of 2016 as a protest against the Government's decision to approve a third runway for Heathrow Airport. In the ensuing bye-election, he stood as an independent candidate instead, but was soundly defeated by the Liberal Democrat candidate, Susan Olney.

Early in 2016, he ran as the Conservative candidate for the London Mayoral election, and drew strong criticisms from many quarters for hinting that his Labour Party opponent, Sadiq Khan, was a "terrorist sympathizer"; Mr. Khan is a well-known civil rights lawyer and a Muslim, and the remarks made against him by Goldsmith and certain of his right-wing supporters were widely perceived as thinly-veiled racism. At the same time, interviews revealed considerable gaps in Goldsmith's knowledge of London and its citizens, and, in the event, he lost the election by a wide margin. Sadiq Khan became London's first Muslim Mayor in May, 2016.