James Cartlidge.

Cartlidge's most consistent departure from Conservative orthodoxy is his support for assisted dying. He voted for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill at Second Reading, Third Reading, and during Report Stage — placing him among the roughly quarter of Conservative MPs who backed the measure throughout, a 75-percentage-point gap from his party's average. His other rebel votes were procedural: he backed a closure motion his party opposed and voted against an amendment at Report Stage that the bill's sponsor warned could harm patient safeguarding. Beyond Parliament, he has been visible as Shadow Defence Secretary, publishing opinion pieces calling for faster rearmament, pressing ministers on delays to the Defence Investment Plan, and criticising what he describes as Labour's mismanagement of defence procurement.

At 73% participation he is slightly below the Commons average, but his 107 defence-related contributions make him one of the more specialist voices on that brief. Elsewhere he votes at 99% party alignment — opposing employment tribunal extensions, planning delegation regulations, and the removal of the academy presumption, all on standard Conservative grounds. He is 100% aligned against tax increases and 96% pro-business across recorded votes, with near-zero alignment on workers' rights or progressive taxation.

His Shadow Defence Secretary role explains the concentration of national-security coverage and the volume of defence speeches; no committee memberships are recorded. Local news over the past 90 days skews toward culture and rural affairs — he lobbied the Culture Secretary over an arts event for South Suffolk and co-signed a letter on A137 infrastructure funding — though sentiment scores across those articles are neutral rather than distinctly positive or negative. No significant negative coverage is recorded in the available data.