Tory chiefs face calls to fire MP Mark Field after he grabbed female protester by the neck at bankers’ banquet

MARK Field was part of the same Oxford University set that produced many of the leading figures in today’s Tory Party.

He studied in the mid-1980s alongside Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, and was active in the Conservative Association as well as becoming an assistant to an MP while still an undergraduate.

After moving into law he was elected to his Cities of London and Westminster seat in 2001 and was tipped for high office but missed out on a ministerial post when his university contemporary David Cameron became Prime Minister.

Mr Field first hit the headlines when it emerged that he had had an affair with Liz Truss, who he was mentoring as she tried to become an MP.

It ended his marriage to his first wife and nearly derailed Miss Truss’s political career as outraged locals dubbed the “Turnip Taliban” in Norfolk tried to deselect her.

Mr Field later married celebrity agent Victoria Elphicke and they have two children.

His first big run-in with protestors came in 2011 when the “Occupy” movement set up tents outside St Paul’s in his Square Mile constituency, and he urged police to clear what he called a “third world shanty town”.

Mr Field backed Remain in the referendum and set up a group called Conservatives for Managed Migration in an attempt have a more calm debate on the contentious topic.

He was made a junior minister in the Foreign Office after the 2017 election and earlier this year was briefly promoted to cover Africa and the Middle East as well as Asia and the Pacific.

The 54-year-old was seen passionately embracing Lucia, the wife of his boss Jeremy Hunt, at his campaign launch event earlier this month.

TORY minister Mark Field has rightly been suspended and apologised over his manhandling of a female eco protester.

They  evaded security to enter the dining hall filled with 350 guests while Chancellor Philip Hammond was speaking.

Yesterday Mr Field — who is Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific, and MP for Cities of London and Westminster — said he had feared Ms Barker was “armed”.

He added: “I reacted instinctively. I deeply regret this episode and unreservedly apologise to the lady concerned.”

But Tory party chairman Brandon Lewis said it was difficult to defend the film. He said: “It’s hard for anybody not be astonished at what they have seen.”