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Margaret Royston Beckett (born 15 January 1943) is a British Labour Party politician who currently is MP for Derby South and, since May 5, 2006, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs; the first woman to hold this position in the British Cabinet and only the second woman, after Margaret Thatcher, to hold one of the four Great Offices of State or to be the Leader of the Opposition, both of which she has done.
The Rt Hon Margaret Beckett | |
|---|---|
| File:MargaretBeckettMP2.jpg Margaret Beckett | |
| Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs | |
| In office May 5, 2006 – present | |
| Preceded by | Jack Straw |
| Constituency | Derby South |
| Majority | 5,657 (45.4%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 15 January 1943 |
| Political party | Labour |
| Website | FCO |
Background
She was born Margaret Mary Jackson in 1943, in Ashton-under-Lyne to an English carpenter father and an Irish Catholic mother. Her sister is a nun. She was educated at the Notre Dame High School for Girls in Norwich, the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, where she qualified as a metallurgist, and The John Dalton Polytechnic.
In 1961, Jackson joined Associated Electrical Industries as a student apprentice in metallurgy. She joined the Transport and General Workers Union in 1964 and remains a member to this day. She joined the University of Manchester in 1966 as an experiment officer in its metallurgy department. In 1970 Jackson went to work for the Labour Party as a researcher in industrial policy.
Political career
In 1973, she was selected as Labour candidate for Lincoln, which the party wanted to win back from dissident ex-Labour MP Dick Taverne. Jackson lost to Taverne at the February 1974 General Election by 1,297 votes. After the election she went to work as a researcher for Judith Hart. Harold Wilson called another general election for the October, and Jackson again went to fight Taverne at Lincoln in the October 1974 General Election. This time Jackson was elected, albeit by just 984 votes.
Junior Minister in Wilson/Callaghan Government
Almost immediately after her election she was given a job as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to her old boss, Judith Hart, who was now the Minister for Overseas Development. Harold Wilson made her Whip in 1975, and she was promoted in 1976 by James Callaghan as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Education and Science, replacing Joan Lestor, who had resigned in protest over spending cuts. She remained in that position until she lost her seat at the 1979 general election. The Conservative candidate Kenneth Carlisle narrowly gained the seat with a 602 vote majority, the first time the Conservative Party had won the seat since 1935.
Into Opposition
She married Lionel (Leo) Beckett, a local party official in Lincoln, shortly after her defeat. They have no children. She joined Granada Television in 1979 as a researcher. Out of Parliament, and now Margaret Beckett, she won election to Labour's National Executive Committee in 1980, and supported left-winger Tony Benn for the Labour deputy leadership in 1981 against Denis Healey. She was the subject of a vociferous attack from Joan Lestor at the conference.
Beckett was chosen to fight the parliamentary seat of Derby South after the retirement of the sitting MP, Walter Johnson. At the 1983 General Election she came very close to losing the seat with the Labour majority down to only 421 votes. During (and before) her time in Parliament, she has continued to live in the constituency, in one of the poorer areas of Derby, next door to a public house and in an area dominated by council housing. She continues to support local co-operatives and regularly attends the Midlands Co-op Fun Day held annualy in the city's Normanton Park.
Returning to the House of Commons, Margaret Beckett gradually moved away from the hard left, supporting incumbent leader Neil Kinnock against Benn in 1988. By this time she was a front bencher, as a spokesperson on Social Security since 1984, becoming a member of the Shadow Cabinet in 1989 as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. After the 1992 General Election she was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and served under John Smith as Shadow Leader of the House of Commons. She became a Member of the Privy Council in 1993.
Leader of the Labour Party 1994
Following the sudden death of John Smith from a heart attack on May 12th 1994, Margaret Beckett became Leader of the Labour Party: the Party's constitution provides that, upon the death or resignation of an incumbent leader, the Deputy Leader automatically becomes leader for the remainder of the leadership term. Labour Leaders are subject to annual re-election at the time of the annual party conference. Accordingly, Beckett was constitutionally entitled to remain in office as leader, until the 1994 Labour Party Annual Conference; however, the party's National Executive Committee (NEC) decided to bring forward the annual election for Leader and Deputy Leader to July 1994.
During the period between the death of John Smith and the subsequent election of Tony Blair as Labour Leader in July 1994, most television and other news reports referred to Beckett as "acting Labour Leader"; this was technically incorrect.
She came third in the subsequent leadership election, behind Tony Blair and John Prescott. Beckett herself had decided that the post of Deputy Leader should be contested at the same time as the leadership role, to ensure that the new leader's team had the full backing of party members — while also hoping that she would become leader, however she also failed to win the Deputy Leadership coming 2nd behind John Prescott.
Frontbench Career under Tony Blair
Under Tony Blair's leadership, Margaret Beckett was the Shadow Secretary of State for Health, and then from 1995 the Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Following the 1997 General Election, she entered Tony Blair's government as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. She became Leader of the House of Commons in 1998.
After the 2001 General Election she was appointed as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Following the 2006 local elections she was made Foreign Secretary, the first woman to hold the post. She has managed to remain part of Blair's inner circle despite close links with the trade union movement. In August 2002 she expressed reservations about the prospect of a war in Iraq, but in the end publicly supported the 2003 Iraq war.
She is one of five remaining members from the original 1997 Labour cabinet, and one of the longest-serving Labour frontbenchers. As of June 2006, she is the last remaining minister to have experience in the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan.
Foreign Secretary
Tony Blair's appointment of her as Foreign Secretary has come under increasing criticism, with many suggesting that Beckett is out of her league in the role. According to the Times she does not stand up well in comparison with the previous Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw.[1] The Spectator recently described her as, "at heart, an old, isolationist, pacifist Leftist" and has called on her to resign.[2]
She also saw some criticism in April 2006 when the details of Ministers' use of RAF aircraft for official travel were published. Beckett was discovered to have taken 134 flights on ministerial business between 2002 and March 2005, flying 102,673 miles. The press noted also that Lionel Beckett frequently accompanied her on trips, leading to his being described as the "political equivalent of a Wag" (the latter being an acronym used to describe the wives and girlfriends of England football players) (Times, 23 July 2006).
In August 2006, 37 Labour party members in her constituency left the party and joined the Liberal Democrats, criticising her approach to the fighting in Lebanon.[3]
Her seat of Derby South as of 2006 has only a majority of just over 5,000 and due to people in her constituency vowing to vote for the Liberal Democrats at the next election, her seat is no longer seen as a safe Labour Seat with many speculating that she could lose her seat at the next election.
Notes
- ^ William Rees-Mogg (June 16, 2006). "Being beastly to Beckett". Times Online. Retrieved 2006-10-31.
- ^ Simon Heffer (August 2, 2006). "Not up to the job". The Spectator. Retrieved 2006-10-31.
- ^ "Beckett suffers Labour defections". BBC News. August 25, 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-31.
External links
- FCO — Rt Hon Margaret Beckett official profile
- ePolitix — Rt Hon Margaret Beckett official website
- Guardian Unlimited Politics — Ask Aristotle: Margaret Beckett MP
- TheyWorkForYou.com — Margaret Beckett MP