Jerry Hayes

Hayes was on the left on the Conservative Party, unlike most of the 1983 intake of Conservative MPs. Hayes opposed capital punishment and fought for free dental and eye check-ups. On his blog, Hayes wrote, "I'm on the independent left of the Conservative Party. During the Thatcher years I was regarded as a rebel. Heaven knows why, I just believed in social justice and pragmatism. But in those days that was about as popular as a rat sandwich. On one occasion I reduced our majority from 140 to 4. I was not always popular with the right." Once, when asked why he did not support Blair's "New Labour" endeavour, he replied "They're too right-wing". On the BBC Question Time programme on 9 May 2013, he expressed the view that there was a real danger that the entire legal profession would be placed in the hands of G4S within a couple of years.

Following his career in Parliament, he wrote for the magazine Punch. In 2006, a bomb was found near his house in the village of Wendens Ambo, near Saffron Walden in Essex. In May 2010, Hayes started a political blog for the website "Think Politics", which also hosts blogs by former Liberal Democrat MP for Falmouth Camborne, Julia Goldsworthy, current Labour MP for Denton and Reddish, Andrew Gwynne, and Conservative candidate for Swansea West, René Kinzett. His blog has now moved to Total Politics. Hayes also regularly reviews the newspapers on Stephen Nolan's weekend late night show on Fridays at midnight on BBC Radio 5 Live along with Mohammed Shafiq, a media commentator on British-Muslim issues.

Hayes is married to Alison and has two children, Lawrence and Francesca. He was the subject of a newspaper article in The Mirror on Jan 7th 1997 which 'outed' him as bisexual, having a long-term affair with another man, Paul Stone. He is a member of the Savile Club.

Roth's Parliamentary Profiles says of Hayes: "[He] has never taken himself seriously, and therefore has not been taken seriously by others." Betty Boothroyd, former Speaker of the House of Commons, said of Hayes that "he would look very pretty as a French maid; I wish I had his curls." Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher personally disliked his beard and yellow ties, which he refused to change, when asked. Hayes was a regular contributor on television quiz shows and talk shows, in particular, The James Whale Show. For over four years he regularly appeared with Charles Kennedy, Ken Livingstone and Michael Parkinson on a political discussion show on LBC in London. Hayes appeared on comedy show Have I Got News for You in 1992, on which he was unafraid to ridicule his own party and it was revealed that he is Ken Livingstone's "favourite Tory", which Hayes compared to being "Ian Paisley's favourite Catholic". Hayes was frequently described as a "political buffoon", because of his willingness to subject himself to ridicule on various television and radio appearances. This included being fastened in the stocks and pelted with custard pies, and being whipped while dressed in fetish clothing.

He was Member of Parliament for Harlow in Essex from 1983. He served on the Health and Heritage Select committees and was a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Northern Ireland Office and the Department of Environment. He introduced a number of Acts including the Sexual Offences Act, the Nurse Prescribing Act and the Video Recordings Act. Hayes lost his seat to Bill Rammell, the Labour Party candidate, in the 1997 general election.

Hayes was called to the Bar by Middle Temple in 1977. Hayes has practised as lead defence counsel in high-profile cases, including R v McGing and R v Tishane Bernard. McGing was a soldier in Basra accused of drowning a teenager whilst on patrol. He was acquitted. Tishane Bernard was accused of a gangland execution, and was also acquitted. He was instrumental in setting up Ten 17 radio with Tony Saxby and Russ Lewell in 1991. He acted as lawyer to John Hemming in his 2005 legal bid to challenge postal votes at the 2005 general election and has also defended celebrities and a British soldier in Iraq. Hayes also represented two Labour councillors accused of postal Ballot fraud in Birmingham. Hayes works at Goldsmith Chambers on whose website he is described as specialising in leading high-profile murder, drugs, rape and fraud cases. He discontinued the rape prosecution of Liam Allen in December 2017, after it was discovered that the police had withheld tens of thousands of text messages sent by the complainant.

Jeremy Joseph James Hayes (born 20 April 1953) is a British former Conservative politician, the MP for Harlow in Essex from 1983 until he lost re-election in 1997. He subsequently returned to practising criminal law.