At the 1997 general election,Simpson was elected as the Member of Parliament for Mid Norfolk with a majority of 1,336.
In July 1997,Simpson was appointed to the Conservative Parliamentary Defence Committee. In June 1998,he was appointed a frontbench defence spokesman. From June 1999 to June 2001,he was an Opposition Whip responsible for Treasury,Home Affairs and Health. He was subsequently appointed Shadow Agriculture Spokesman in October 2001. From 2002–05,he was Shadow Minister for Defence,and from 2005–10 he served as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Following parliamentary boundary changes and prior to the 2010 general election,Simpson's constituency of Mid Norfolk was redrawn. He was selected to stand for the newly created seat of Broadland,which derived from parts of the Mid Norfolk,Norfolk North and Norwich North constituencies. Simpson won the seat with a majority of 7,292.
As a military historian,Simpson has served as Director of the Cranfield Security Studies Institute at Cranfield University from 1991–7,and as a Senior Lecturer in War Studies and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst from 1973–86. He is the author of five books on military history. It was also in this capacity that he was invited to debate masculine violence with a drunken Oliver Reed on an infamous edition of the late night Channel 4 television programme After Dark,broadcast on 26 January 1991. Reed confronted him and called him 'flash boy'.[7][bettersourceneeded]
Personal life
Simpson married Pepita,the daughter of Norman Hollingsworth,on 4 August 1984 at the Royal Memorial Chapel,Sandhurst. The couple currently live in Coltishall,Norfolk,and have one son.[citation needed]
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