Nicholas Boles

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Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles (b. 1965) is a British Conservative Party activist and Director of Policy Exchange, a policy think tank based in Westminster and a former Westminster City councillor.

Boles studied PPE at Magdalen College, Oxford and won a Kennedy Scholarship to study for a Master's in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

In 1995, he founded a small DIY supply small business, of which he is non-executive chairman. In 1998, he was elected to Westminster City Council for the West End ward comprising Mayfair and Soho. He was chairman of the Housing Committee from 1999 to 2001, before stepping down in 2002. During much of this time, Boles flatshared with fellow Conservative activists, Michael Gove and Ivan Massow. He and Gove, along with fellow Westminster Conservatives Ed Vaizey, David Cameron, George Osborne and Rachel Whetstone, are sometimes referred to as the 'Notting Hill set' an influential group of Conservatives.

Boles was the Conservative Party candidate for the Labour-held marginal seat of Hove for the May 2005 general election. However, Celia Barlow retained the seat for Labour. The share of the Conservative vote fell by 2% in this target marginal constituency.

Nicholas Boles received some media attention during 2005 election by being an openly gay Conservative candidate for a winable seat. He has been placed on the 170-strong 'A-List' of Conservative candidates ahead of the next general election but has not applied for any constituency nominations, prompting a letter to him from Conservative Campaign Headquarters, outlining the responsibilities of candidates on the list to apply for seats.[1]. Following his entry into the primary to find the party a candidate for the London Mayoral election, and that of several other unknown candidates, Conservative Party leader David Cameron has now decided to extend the deadline for applications to run as the Conservative Party's candidate in a search for a heavyweight political candidate.

Boles is a member of the Cambridge-based think tank the Henry Jackson Society, which advocates a pro-active approach to the spread of liberal democracy in the world. The think tank is linked to many influential American neo-conservatives and its members have been enthusiastic supporters of U.S. President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq.