Sir Chris Bryant, a Business Minister and Labour MP, recounts in his new memoir "A Life and a Half: The Unexpected Making of a Politician" the path from a calling to the Anglican priesthood to a career in politics, including inheriting and largely donating a multimillion-pound estate and becoming one of Britain’s high-profile openly gay parliamentarians.
Bryant writes that his first major "call" came while touring with the National Youth Theatre in 1981, when he said he felt called to the priesthood while visiting Antwerp Cathedral. He went on to enter the Church of England, describing an ecclesiastical culture that allowed many clergy to conceal their sexuality. Bryant details moments from his selection interviews and ministry in which questions about relationships and private life surfaced, and recounts a bishop advising that, by keeping quiet, a clergyman could rise through the church’s ranks.
The memoir traces his decision to leave the priesthood and embrace a public life as a gay man and a Labour politician. Bryant stood as the Labour candidate for Rhondda in 2000 and won the seat in the 2001 general election with a reported 16,000 majority, a victory the South Wales Echo described at the time as evidence that a "colourful past" was no bar to his election. He attributes his shift from a conservative upbringing to Labour to a combination of factors, including opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s policies, exposure to poverty in the United Kingdom, and experiences abroad.
Bryant also describes personal family history that shaped his outlook. He recounts growing up with an alcoholic mother and an often-absent father, responsibilities he assumed at a young age, and the emotional toll of that upbringing. He writes about three elderly cousins who provided stability and support; when the last of the cousins died and offered him the family’s multimillion-pound estate, Bryant says he accepted only enough to care for his mother and distributed the remainder to relatives and to charity.
The memoir chronicles Bryant’s life in 1990s London’s LGBT scene after leaving the clergy. He describes the capital’s gay clubs as spaces of liberation and social mixing and credits canvassing in LGBT bars for helping him meet his partner, Jared. He writes candidly about coming to terms with his sexuality, recalling early experiences of shame in school and later moments of acceptance.
A review of the book in the Daily Mail summarized these episodes and highlighted Bryant’s frankness about sexual identity, religion and political ambition. The memoir situates personal narrative alongside political formation: Bryant recounts being seen by rivals as privately educated and once conservative, and describes how he overcame those charges to secure support in a Welsh valley constituency.
While the book focuses on Bryant’s life and the British institutions that shaped it, its themes intersect with ongoing debates in the United States about the role of religion in public life, the expectations placed on clergy, and the visibility of LGBT politicians and public figures. Discussions in the US over clergy who enter politics, religious institutions’ approaches to sexuality, and the political implications of coming-out narratives mirror the issues Bryant addresses from the perspective of the British political system.
Bryant’s memoir ends with reflections on agency and the possibility of change. He writes that both personal and national futures are not predetermined and can be reshaped. The book covers his life up to the moment of his first election to Parliament and aims to place private struggles alongside public service. A Life and a Half is available from Bloomsbury and reviewed in the Daily Mail.