The Baroness Jones of Whitchurch | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| Assumed office 18 July 2006 Life Peerage | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | May 22, 1955 |
| Political party | Labour |
| Alma mater | Whitchurch High School University of Sussex |
Margaret Beryl Jones, Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (born 22 May 1955) [1] is a British Labour Peer and previously a trade union official and Labour politician. She was Chair of the Labour Party from 2000 to 2001.
Jones was born in Cardiff to Bill and Audrey Jones, and was educated at Whitchurch High School. She then studied at the University of Sussex, gaining a BA in Sociology. [1] [2] She now lives in Hove. [3]
Jones was Director of Policy and Public Affairs of the trade union UNISON until 2006. In 1979 she became a regional official of National Union of Public Employees (NUPE), which merged into UNISON.
She has a background as a housing campaigner and environmentalist as well as fighting low pay and discrimination at work. She was previously a trustee of Shelter and the Waste & Resources Action Programme as well as being on the board of the Circle 33 Housing Trust. [4] She has been a Development Board member of ClientEarth, [5] board member of Ombudsman Services, Chair of Rothamsted Enterprises, and President of Friends of the South Downs.[ citation needed ]
Jones was a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC) within the trade union section from 1993 to 2005. She was elected Chair of the Labour Party in 2000, the year the Prime Minister Tony Blair controversially appointed Charles Clarke to be the similarly named Party Chairman. [6] She was co-convener, along with Tony Blair, of the NEC Joint Policy Committee for much of her time on the NEC.
Jones was the Labour Party parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Blaenau Gwent at the 2005 general election, the safest Labour seat in Wales, and fifth safest in the UK. She was selected from a women-only shortlist which was controversially imposed upon the local party; [7] subsequently eight of twelve members of the local executive resigned in protest. [8] The retiring MP Llew Smith also criticised the selection method. [9]
Peter Law, the Labour Welsh Assembly Member for the constituency, resigned from the party and stood against her as an Independent. Prior to the announcement of Law's rumoured candidacy, Jones stated that Law would be "very foolish" to stand against her. She argued "Blaenau Gwent is solidly Labour and I don't think people will vote for anyone else." [10]
Law won the seat with a majority of 9,121 votes, creating one of the media highlights of the election. The Daily Telegraph described Jones' defeat as "one of the most spectacular general election results of modern times". [11]
Following her election defeat, Jones was nominated for a Life Peerage in 2005 by the Labour Party, according to a list leaked to The Times . [12] [13] [14] This leaked list eventually led to the Cash for Peerages scandal in which Jones was not implicated. On 10 April 2006, her nomination for a peerage was officially announced, [15] and she was gazetted as Baroness Jones of Whitchurch, of Whitchurch in the County of South Glamorgan on 5 June 2006. [16] Jones' peerage was widely criticised, with Law stating "That is the way New Labour works. It's a poor example of patronage and power." Labour MP Paul Flynn was also critical, he argued: "This is standing democracy on its head. The House of Lords shouldn't be used to reward a candidate who has been emphatically rejected by the electorate." [17]
In June 2010 Jones joined Labour's Shadow Ministerial Team, as Labour's House of Lords spokeswoman on Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. She was then promoted to the Shadow Education Minister. Since 2015 she has been Labour's Shadow Environment Minister in the Lords.
In 2020, Lady Jones was appointed as a member of the South Downs National Park Authority.
Blaenau Gwent is a county borough in the south-east of Wales. It borders the unitary authority areas of Monmouthshire and Torfaen to the east, Caerphilly to the west and Powys to the north. Its main towns are Abertillery, Brynmawr, Ebbw Vale and Tredegar. Its highest point is Coity Mountain at 1,896 feet (578 m).
Llewellyn Thomas Smith was a British Labour Party politician.
Dafydd Wynne Wigley, Baron Wigley, is a Welsh politician who served as the leader of Plaid Cymru from 1981 to 1984 and again from 1991 to 2000. He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Caernarfon from 1974 to 2001 and as the Member of the Welsh Assembly for Caernarfon from 1999 to 2003. In 2010, Wigley was granted life peerage, taking his seat in the house of lords in 2011.
Mair Eluned Morgan, Baroness Morgan of Ely is a Welsh Labour politician serving as Minister for Health and Social Services in the Welsh Government since 2021. Morgan has served as a Member of the House of Lords since 2011 and as a Member of the Senedd (MS) since 2016. She was previously Minister for the Welsh Language from 2017 to 2021, Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing from 2020 to 2021, and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1994 to 2009.
Blaenau Gwent is a constituency in South Wales, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Nick Smith of the Labour Party.
The 2005 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 5 May 2005, to elect 646 members to the House of Commons. The governing Labour Party, led by Tony Blair, won its third consecutive victory, with Blair becoming the second Labour leader after Harold Wilson to form three majority governments. However, its majority fell to 66 seats compared to the 167-seat majority it had won four years before. This was the first time the Labour Party had won a third consecutive election, and remains the party's most recent general election victory.
Peter John Law was a Welsh politician. For most of his career Law sat as a Labour councillor and subsequently Labour Co-operative Assembly member (AM) for Blaenau Gwent. Latterly he sat as an independent member of Parliament (MP) and AM for the same constituency.
Two by-elections were held for the constituency of Blaenau Gwent in Wales following the death of Member of Parliament and Assembly Member Peter Law on 25 April 2006. As Law was the MP and Assembly Member (AM), his death required by-elections in both the parliamentary seat and the equivalent Welsh Assembly constituency. The two elections polled on the same day, 29 June, as a by-election in Bromley and Chislehurst. A win by the Labour Party in the AM by-election would have restored their majority in the Welsh Assembly, which was lost when Law was expelled from the party.
The Blaenau Gwent People's Voice Group was a political party based in the Blaenau Gwent area of Wales.
David Clifford Davies, commonly known as Dai Davies, is a Welsh politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Blaenau Gwent constituency in South Wales from 2006 to 2010, representing the Blaenau Gwent People's Voice Group. He was elected at a by-election in June 2006 following the death of independent MP Peter Law, but lost his seat at the 2010 general election to Labour's Nick Smith by 10,516 votes.
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Blaenau Gwent is a constituency of the Senedd. It elects one Member of the Senedd by the first past the post method of election. Also, however, it is one of eight constituencies in the South Wales East electoral region, which elects four additional members, in addition to eight constituency members, to produce a degree of proportional representation for the region as a whole.
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Nicholas Desmond John Smith is a Welsh Labour Party politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Blaenau Gwent since 2010. From 1998 to 2006 he was a councillor in the London Borough of Camden.
The 2007 National Assembly for Wales election was held on Thursday 3 May 2007 to elect members to the National Assembly for Wales. It was the third general election. On the same day local elections in England and Scotland, as well as the Scottish Parliament election took place. This election was preceded by the previous Assembly election in 2003.
These are the results of the 2005 United Kingdom general election in Wales. The election was held on 5 May 2005 and all 40 seats in Wales were contested.
As part of the local elections in Wales on 4 May 2017, the 42 seats of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council were up for election. The majority of members elected were independents, replacing the previous Labour administration.
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