Kruger was born in Westminster to South African parents, writer and property developer Rayne Kruger, and restaurateur and television presenter Prue Leith. He was privately educated at Eton College. Kruger studied history at the University of Edinburgh. While at the university, he was the editor of the magazine Intercourse, which had a controversial issue featuring three naked students and an advertisement for a massage parlour. He obtained a doctorate in history from the University of Oxford in 2000. After university, he became the director of research at the centre-right think tank Centre for Policy Studies in 2001. Kruger worked as a policy adviser in the Conservative Party's Policy Unit from 2003 to 2005. During this time, he was credited with contributing to then Conservative Party Leader Iain Duncan Smith's speech at the 2003 Conservative Party Conference. In 2005, Kruger became the chief leader writer of The Daily Telegraph. Kruger was selected as the Conservative candidate for Sedgefield in the 2005 general election. He was forced to drop out of the contest after The Guardian quoted him stating the party had planned "to introduce a period of creative destruction in the public services". Kruger left his position at The Daily Telegraph to become the chief speechwriter to then Conservative Party Leader David Cameron in 2006. He wrote Cameron's 2006 address to the think-tank Centre for Social Justice, which was later dubbed the "hug-a-hoodie" speech, and was noted as a call to re-brand the party with compassionate conservatism at its core. He co-founded the London-based youth crime prevention charity, Only Connect, in 2006 and in 2008 left his position as Cameron's chief speechwriter to work full-time for the charity. In 2015, the charity was acquired by Catch22 but continued to operate independently with its own brand. He also founded the charity West London Zone, which aims to provide support to at-risk youth. Kruger was made an MBE for services to charity in the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours. In the same year, he voiced his support for the legalisation of cannabis. Kruger supported Brexit in the 2016 UK EU membership referendum. He was a senior fellow at the pro-Brexit think-tank Legatum Institute, which he left in 2018 to become an adviser at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. In August 2019, Kruger became the political secretary to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Parliamentary career
Kruger was selected as the Conservative candidate for Devizes on 9 November 2019. The constituency's incumbent Conservative MP, Claire Perry O'Neill, had previously announced that she would be standing down at the next election to become the president of the 2020 United Nations Climate Change Conference, and spend more time with her family; she was later fired from that role by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 31 January 2020 for unspecified reasons. Kruger was elected as MP for Devizes in the 2019 general election, with a majority of 23,993. He made his maiden speech on 29 January 2020, in which he called for a return to Christian values. In May 2020 he tweeted extensively in support of the apparent breach of the lockdown spirit by Dominic Cummings and Mary Wakefield, describing them as "old friends".
Personal life
Kruger is married to Emma, a former teacher. They are both co-founders of the charity Only Connect. He is an evangelical Christian.
