Jane Griffiths (politician)
Encyclopedia
Jane Patricia Griffiths (born 17 April 1954) is a British
linguist and politician. She held positions as a Labour
councillor
on Reading Borough Council
, and as Labour Member of Parliament
(MP) for the Reading East parliamentary constituency. A controversial figure in her constituency, she was deselected as MP in 2004.
, to John and Pat Griffiths, she was educated at the Cedars Grammar School, Leighton Buzzard
and St Mary's College
, University of Durham. She has a BA in French and Russian.
From 1977 to 1984, Griffiths worked as a linguist at Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ), the UK electronic intelligence operation in Cheltenham
. From 1984 until 1997 she worked as a foreign news editor for BBC Monitoring
and the BBC World Service
in Reading
. Besides her native English
, she speaks Russian
, French
, Japanese
and Korean
.
councillor
on Reading Borough Council
, holding various senior positions. At the 1997 general election
, Griffiths was elected as Member of Parliament
for the Reading East parliamentary constituency, a position she retained in the following general election in 2001 and until the 2005 general election
. She was the first woman elected to represent a Reading seat.
On 20 June 2002 she was appointed to represent the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
and the Western European Union
.
In 2004 her constituency Labour Party
deselected her as a candidate for the next general election, giving the candidature to local councillor Tony Page. This was the first such deselection of a sitting MP in the United Kingdom for ten years. The press suggested soon afterwards that she might defect from the Labour Party, and contest the seat as a Conservative Party
candidate, but she did not. Griffiths had claimed that a small number of men in the Labour party wanted to get rid of her, however her suggestion was dismissed in an open letter to a newspaper signed by 17 female party members as "wild conspiracy theories".
Following her deselection and amid the ensuing acrimony within the local Labour Party, Tony Page failed to win the seat at the 2005 general election
, losing out to the Conservative
candidate, Rob Wilson
.
Griffiths was declared bankrupt, owing £29,000 to the Inland Revenue
. This would have disqualified her from retaking her seat in the House of Commons had she been reselected and reelected. She failed to appear at her bankruptcy hearing before Reading County Court
on Monday 19 September 2005 and a warrant
was subsequently issued for her arrest. After convincing the court she had the assets to pay her debts and would co-operate with the proceedings, the warrant was discharged. However, her discharge from bankruptcy was subsequently suspended on the grounds that she was not co-operating, stating that she was in Latvia
. This was incorrectly reported in the local press as her being made bankrupt a second time.
Labour Party in particular.
She was well known in her constituency as a keen rat
fancier and owner of several pet rats
. She also initiated the unsuccessful campaign to return the fireless locomotive
Huntley & Palmers No.1
to Reading.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
linguist and politician. She held positions as a Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
councillor
Councillor
A councillor or councilor is a member of a local government council, such as a city council.Often in the United States, the title is councilman or councilwoman.-United Kingdom:...
on Reading Borough Council
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
, and as Labour Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for the Reading East parliamentary constituency. A controversial figure in her constituency, she was deselected as MP in 2004.
Early life
Born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, to John and Pat Griffiths, she was educated at the Cedars Grammar School, Leighton Buzzard
Leighton Buzzard
-Lower schools:*Beaudesert Lower School - Apennine Way*Clipstone Brook Lower School - Brooklands Drive*Greenleas Lower School - Derwent Road*Dovery Down Lower School - Heath Road*Heathwood Lower School - Heath Road*Leedon Lower School - Highfield Road...
and St Mary's College
St Mary's College, Durham
St Mary's College is a college of the University of Durham in England. Following the grant of a supplemental charter in 1895 allowing women to receive degrees of the university, St Mary's was founded as the Women's Hostel in 1899, adopting its present name in May 1920...
, University of Durham. She has a BA in French and Russian.
From 1977 to 1984, Griffiths worked as a linguist at Government Communications Headquarters
Government Communications Headquarters
The Government Communications Headquarters is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence and information assurance to the UK government and armed forces...
(GCHQ), the UK electronic intelligence operation in Cheltenham
Cheltenham
Cheltenham , also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a large spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds in the South-West region of England. It is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held...
. From 1984 until 1997 she worked as a foreign news editor for BBC Monitoring
BBC Monitoring
BBC Monitoring is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation which monitors, and reports on, mass media worldwide. Based at Caversham Park in Caversham, Reading in southern England, it has a number of overseas bureaux including Moscow, Nairobi, Kiev, Baku, Tashkent, Cairo, Tbilisi, Yerevan...
and the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
in Reading
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
. Besides her native English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, she speaks Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
.
Politics
From 1989 to 1999, Griffiths was a LabourLabour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
councillor
Councillor
A councillor or councilor is a member of a local government council, such as a city council.Often in the United States, the title is councilman or councilwoman.-United Kingdom:...
on Reading Borough Council
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
, holding various senior positions. At the 1997 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1997
The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...
, Griffiths was elected as Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for the Reading East parliamentary constituency, a position she retained in the following general election in 2001 and until the 2005 general election
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
. She was the first woman elected to represent a Reading seat.
On 20 June 2002 she was appointed to represent the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , which held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, can be considered the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an...
and the Western European Union
Western European Union
The Western European Union was an international organisation tasked with implementing the Modified Treaty of Brussels , an amended version of the original 1948 Treaty of Brussels...
.
In 2004 her constituency Labour Party
Constituency Labour Party
A Constituency Labour Party is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular UK parliamentary constituency in England, Scotland and Wales. The Labour Party in Northern Ireland has, since February 2009, been organised as a province-wide Constituency Labour Party...
deselected her as a candidate for the next general election, giving the candidature to local councillor Tony Page. This was the first such deselection of a sitting MP in the United Kingdom for ten years. The press suggested soon afterwards that she might defect from the Labour Party, and contest the seat as a Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
candidate, but she did not. Griffiths had claimed that a small number of men in the Labour party wanted to get rid of her, however her suggestion was dismissed in an open letter to a newspaper signed by 17 female party members as "wild conspiracy theories".
Following her deselection and amid the ensuing acrimony within the local Labour Party, Tony Page failed to win the seat at the 2005 general election
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
, losing out to the Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
candidate, Rob Wilson
Rob Wilson
Robert Owen Biggs Wilson is a United Kingdom politician and entrepreneur. He was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for the Reading East parliamentary constituency in the 2005 general election.-Early life:...
.
Bankruptcy and Arrest
Four days after the 2005 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
Griffiths was declared bankrupt, owing £29,000 to the Inland Revenue
Inland Revenue
The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation tax, petroleum revenue tax and stamp duty...
. This would have disqualified her from retaking her seat in the House of Commons had she been reselected and reelected. She failed to appear at her bankruptcy hearing before Reading County Court
County Court
A county court is a court based in or with a jurisdiction covering one or more counties, which are administrative divisions within a country, not to be confused with the medieval system of county courts held by the High Sheriff of each county.-England and Wales:County Court matters can be lodged...
on Monday 19 September 2005 and a warrant
Arrest warrant
An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by and on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual.-Canada:Arrest warrants are issued by a judge or justice of the peace under the Criminal Code of Canada....
was subsequently issued for her arrest. After convincing the court she had the assets to pay her debts and would co-operate with the proceedings, the warrant was discharged. However, her discharge from bankruptcy was subsequently suspended on the grounds that she was not co-operating, stating that she was in Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
. This was incorrectly reported in the local press as her being made bankrupt a second time.
Blogs
During 2005-6 Griffiths wrote a political blog, called 'janestheone' after her election slogan in earlier days. On her blog, she described herself as a writer, linguist and political blogger and as being internationalist, anti-totalitarian and pro-democracy everywhere in the world. The blog was suspended following a complaint but she immediately started a new one. The new blog, like the old one, is devoted mainly to criticising Old Labour in general and ReadingReading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
Labour Party in particular.
Personal life
Griffiths is married to Andrew Tattersall, who previously worked as her assistant. She has two children from a previous marriage. She currently lives in Strasbourg.She was well known in her constituency as a keen rat
Rat
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...
fancier and owner of several pet rats
Fancy rat
The fancy rat is a domesticated brown rat , which is the most common type of pet rat. The name fancy rat derives from the idea of animal fancy or the phrase "to fancy" ....
. She also initiated the unsuccessful campaign to return the fireless locomotive
Fireless locomotive
A fireless locomotive is a type of locomotive designed for use under conditions restricted by either the presence of flammable material or the need for cleanliness...
Huntley & Palmers No.1
Bagnall fireless locomotives (preserved)
Six Bagnall fireless locomotives have been preserved in Great Britain. This is a surprisingly large number since W. G. Bagnall of Stafford, England, built only 14 fireless locomotives in total....
to Reading.