Margaret Eve, Lady Hodge, MBE (
néeNEE, Nee, Née may refer to:* Née or Nee, French for "born", indicates a person's birth surname* Nee , a band in Kannada* NEE, a political party in Flanders, Belgium* "Ne~e?", a 2003 single by Aya Matsuura- People with the family name :...
Margaret Oppenheimer; born 8 September 1944,
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
) is a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
politician and
Labour PartyThe Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded at the start of the 20th century, it has been seen since 1920 as the principal party of the Left in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, where it has only recently begun to organise again...
Member of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a parliament. In many countries the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a unique title, such as senate, and thus also have unique titles for its members, such as senators. Members of...
for
BarkingBarking is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election...
. She was the first
Minister for ChildrenThe Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families is a Minister of State for Department for Children, Schools and Families in the Government of the United Kingdom. Beverley Hughes has had the position since 2006.-History:...
in 2001 and is currently Minister of State for Culture and Tourism at the
Department for Culture, Media and SportThe Department for Culture, Media and Sport is a department of the United Kingdom government, with responsibility for culture and sport in England, and some aspects of the media throughout the whole UK, for example broadcasting...
.
Early life
Margaret Hodge was born in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
as Margaret Oppenheimer, the daughter of a refugee millionaire
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
Jewish steel trader and his
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
n Jewish wife, Hans and Lisbeth Oppenheimer. After World War II, her family settled in London. Her mother died when Margaret was 10. She was educated at Bromley High School on Blackbrook Lane in
BickleyBickley is a residential area and electoral ward in the London Borough of Bromley, England. It is a suburban development situated 10.4 miles south east of Charing Cross....
, Oxford High School on
Belbroughton RoadBelbroughton Road is a residential road in the suburb of North Oxford, England. The road runs east from Banbury Road. At the other end is Oxford High School, a girls' school. South from the road about half way along is Northmoor Road, where J.R.R. Tolkien lived for a while in the 1930s. At the...
in Oxford (both independent schools), and the
London School of EconomicsThe London School of Economics and Political Science, commonly referred to as the London School of Economics or LSE, is a specialist constituent college of the University of London in London, England....
where she obtained a third class
BScA Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years ....
Economics degree in 1966. She worked in
market researchMarket research is any organized effort to gather information about markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy...
from 1966-73.
She married Andrew Watson in 1968. They had a son and daughter. The couple divorced in 1978 and that same year she married
Henry HodgeSir Henry Egar Garfield Hodge, OBE , styled The Hon. Mr Justice Hodge, was an English solicitor and judge of the High Court of England and Wales....
(later Sir Henry), going on to have two daughters. Henry Hodge was a fellow Labour borough councillor and Chairman of the National Council for Civil Liberties who went on to become a
High Court judgeA High Court judge is a judge of the High Court of Justice, and represents the third highest level of judge in the courts of England and Wales. High Court judges are referred to as puisne judges.-Title and form of address:...
; he died in 2009. From 1992 to 1994, she was a senior consultant for Price Waterhouse.
She has four children and one grandchild.
Islington Council
Hodge was elected as a councillor in the
London Borough of IslingtonThe London Borough of Islington is a London borough in Inner London. It was formed in 1965 by merging the former metropolitan boroughs of Islington and Finsbury. The borough contains two Westminster parliamentary constituencies, Islington North and Islington South & Finsbury.- Etymology :Islington...
in 1973. She was associated with a group of newly elected, activist, largely middle-class councillors who were viewed with varying degrees of antagonism by some established Labour Party councillors.
She rapidly became Chairman of the Housing Committee (opting to use "chairman" rather than "chair"). This was a critical post in an authority with one of the worst sets of housing statistics in London and in a period when London Boroughs were expected to be housing providers and managers. Hodge's tenure as Housing Chairman saw the continuation of a large new housing programme. There was a change of emphasis to the refurbishment of sound, older buildings (eg, Charteris Road, Alexander Road areas), in response to a paper published by the local Islington Housing Action Group.
At one point, Hodge's deputy chairman was
Jack StrawJack Straw , British politician.Jack Straw may also be:* Jack Straw , English* "Jack Straw" * Jack Straw * Jack Straw Foundation, American public radio foundation* Jackstraws, game pick-up sticks...
, subsequently a Cabinet member of Prime Minister
Tony BlairAnthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
's administrations.
The Islington Labour Parties were badly affected by the defection of members and elected public representatives to the
Social Democratic PartyThe name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by a large number of political parties in various countries around the world...
but, when the dust had settled, Hodge had emerged as council leader, in 1982, a post which she held until 1992. During her 10 years as leader of Islington Council she was referred to as "Enver Hodge", after the
AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
n despot,
Enver Hoxha' was the Communist leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania...
('Hoxha' is pronounced similarly to 'Hodge'). She had become the focus of antagonism from "old-guard", former Labour Party members who felt that their party had been "taken over" by middle-class incomers.
The end of her period at Islington, before taking up her Parliamentary career, was marred by criticism of her response (in 1985) to serious child abuse allegations.
Child abuse controversy
In 1985, Demetrious Panton complained about abuse that he had suffered while in the council's care in the 70s and 80s. He did not receive an official reply until 1989, in which the council denied responsibility.
In 1990 Liz Davies, a senior social worker employed by the borough and her manager David Cofie, raised concerns about
sexual abuseSexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another, when that force falls short of being a sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
of children in Islington Council Care. Correspondence between Hodge and the Director of Social Work indicates that she declined a request for extra resources to investigate. In early 1992, Liz Davies (not to be confused with the barrister and former
Islington councillorLiz Davies is a British barrister and political activist. She is the daughter of retired Oxford academic and historian of Tudor England, C. S. L. Davies....
) resigned from her post and requested that
Scotland YardNew Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for law enforcement within Greater London, excluding the City district, which is covered by the City of London Police....
investigate the allegations. The
Evening StandardThe London Evening Standard is a free local daily newspaper, published in tabloid format in London, England. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the southeast of England, with coverage of national and international news and a strong emphasis on City of London finance...
then began reporting on the allegations of abuse in Islingtons children's homes, shortly after which Hodge resigned to pursue a career with
Price WaterhousePricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the world's largest professional services firms. It was formed in 1998 from a merger between Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand, both formed in London....
. In 1995, the White Report into sexual abuse in Islington Care homes reported that the council had failed adequately to investigate the allegations.
In 2003, following Hodge's appointment as Minister for Children, Demetrious Panton went public with his allegation that he was abused in Islington Council care and had repeatedly raised this issue with no effect. He accused Margaret Hodge of being ultimately responsible for the abuse that he suffered. Liz Davies also went public with the issues that she had raised concerns about while working for the council.
Following a media campaign conducted by several national newspapers calling for her to resign from her new post, she responded to Panton by letter, in which she referred to him as 'extremely disturbed'. Panton then passed the letter to the press which planned to publish it, only to be judicially restrained from doing so at the instruction of Hodge. The letter was eventually published, mainly on the grounds that the blocking of the letter was seen as disproportionate. Hodge was forced to publicly apologise and offered to contribute to a charity of the man's choosing as recompense.
Parliamentary career
Hodge has been member for Barking since a by-election on 9 June 1994 caused by the death of
Jo RichardsonJosephine Richardson was a British Labour politician. At the time of her death she was member of Parliament for Barking, a post she had held since 1974.-Early life:She was born in Newcastle upon Tyne...
. As a new MP, she co-nominated the candidature of
Tony BlairAnthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, a former neighbour, to be the new leader of the
Labour PartyThe Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded at the start of the 20th century, it has been seen since 1920 as the principal party of the Left in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, where it has only recently begun to organise again...
after the unexpected death of
John SmithJohn Smith was a Scottish Labour politician who was the Member of Parliament for Monklands East from 1970 and the Leader of the Opposition from July 1992 until his sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994.- Early life :...
.
She became a junior minister in 1998 and was made Minister for Universities in 2001, and remained there until 2003 when she was made Children's Minister. She was appointed to the Privy Council on 22 June 2003.
First Children's Minister and after
Hodge was the first person to be Children's Minister when the post was created in 2003 but suffered difficulties after the Islington controversy; her resignation was called for on several occasions by the press and parliamentary opposition.
She was later transferred to less visible posts. Usually viewed as a strong supporter of
Tony BlairAnthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, she appeared to have retained his support despite the hostility of the press, the opposition and, it is rumoured, a number of her parliamentary colleagues.
Privacy InternationalPrivacy International is a UK-based non-profit organisation formed in 1990, "as a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations." PI has organised campaigns and initiatives in more than fifty countries and is based in London, UK.-Formation, background and...
awarded Margaret Hodge the 2004
Big Brother Award for "Worst Public Servant" for her backing of controversial initiatives including the
Universal Child DatabaseContactPoint is a government database designed by Capgemini that holds information on all children under age 18 in England...
. At a keynote speech to the
Institute for Public Policy ResearchThe Institute for Public Policy Research is a left-wing UK think-tank with strong ties to the Labour party that claims to produce progressive ideas committed to upholding values of social justice, democratic reform and environmental sustainability. IPPR is based in London and also has a branch in...
on 26 November 2004, Hodge strongly defended the idea of greater state regulation of individuals' choices, stating that "some may call it the
nanny stateNanny state is a term that refers to state protectionism, economic interventionism, or regulatory policies , and the perception that these policies are becoming institutionalized as common practice. Opponents of such policies use the term in their advocacy against what they consider as uninvited...
but I call it a force for good".
In the same year
Fathers 4 JusticeFathers 4 Justice began as a fathers’ rights organisation in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom branch was temporarily disbanded in January 2006, following allegations of a plot by members to kidnap the son of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair...
campaigner Jonathan Stanesby handcuffed Hodge, stating he was arresting her for child abuse. Fathers 4 Justice targeted Hodge because she was the "bogeywoman of family law, who doesn't even believe in equal parenting". Stanesby and colleague Jason Hatch were later cleared of a charge false imprisonment after claiming that it was part of a reasonable political protest.
In 2005 she was appointed Minister of State at the
Department for Work and PensionsThe Department for Work and Pensions is the largest government department in the Government of the United Kingdom, created on June 8, 2001 from the merger of the employment part of the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security...
with responsibility for Work. It was during this period that she was often to be heard and seen in the media advocating as mitigation against the raising of university tuition fees, that these were a good investment for students as they would benefit from a supposed £400,000 graduate premium, a figure supposedly representing the advantage in lifetime salary enjoyed by graduates. Many considered this claim extremely disingenuous, since if a premium existed at all, it existed at a time when perhaps 5% of the population entered into degree level studies, and not the 50% proposed. Furthermore, there was ample evidence that a large number of modern graduates struggle to gain employment paying much above minimum wage when they have engaged in some of the softer and less vocationally oriented subjects now on offer. Many consider that perhaps a third of modern graduates will struggle to repay their loans in the long term. When the Student Loan Book is privatised as is now proposed (2009)their situation may become ever more parlous.
On 17 June 2005 was criticised for saying that the former workers of MG Rover would be able to obtain jobs at
TescoTesco plc is a UK-based international grocery and general merchandising retail chain. It is the largest British retailer by both global sales and domestic market share, with profits exceeding £3 billion. It is currently the third largest global retailer based on revenue, behind Wal-Mart and...
, a local supermarket. Later, she claimed that she had not say this, rather that she had empathy for those losing their jobs, and pointed to a new Tesco supermarket as an example of new jobs being created in the face of the redundancies at the car manufacturing plant.
Hodge and the BNP
In April 2006 she commented in an interview with
The Sunday Telegraph that eight out of ten white
working classWorking class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in lower tier jobs as measured by skill, education, and compensation....
voters in her constituency may be tempted to vote for the
British National PartyThe British National Party is a far-right, whites-only political party in the United Kingdom, formed as a splinter group of the British National Front by John Tyndall in 1982. The party's current chairman is Nick Griffin, himself a former national organiser of the National Front.The BNP is not...
(BNP) in the
local electionsLocal governments are administrative office that are smaller than a state. The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government....
on 4 May 2006 because "no one else is listening to them" about their concerns over unemployment, high house prices, and the housing of asylum seekers in the area. She said the Labour Party must promote "very, very strongly the benefits of the new, rich multi-racial society which is part of this part of London for me".
There was side media coverage of her remarks, and she was strongly criticised for giving the BNP publicity in the local election campaign. After the election, the BNP delivered a bouquet of roses to her office to thank her for her contribution to their cause: the election resulted in an almost clean sweep for the BNP in the seats where they stood, winning 12 of the 13 seats in Dagenham (Alibon, Whalebone and Mayesbrook Wards). Whilst this was far short of the Labour party total, it was clear from their performance that the BNP could have won many more seats had they stood a full slate of candidates. Local Labour activists blamed Hodge, and it was reported that moves were under way to deselect her.
Despite this she was appointed to a post at the
Department of Trade and IndustryThe Department of Trade and Industry was a United Kingdom government department which was replaced with the announcement of the creation of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills on 28 June 2007.The department was...
in the Cabinet reshuffle of May 2006.
More recently, the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, accused Hodge of "magnifying the propaganda of the British National Party" after she said that British residents should get priority in council house allocation.
Minister of State for Industry and the Regions
On 24 May 2006 the
GMB UnionThe GMB is a general trade union in the United Kingdom, and has more than 600,000 members. Its members are drawn from many sectors, with particular strength amongst manual workers in local government and the health service...
wrote to Margaret Hodge asking her to resign "... because of Margaret Hodge giving so much publicity to the BNP which allowed them to win a large number of seats...".
October 2006 saw a flurry of negative coverage of Margaret Hodge's ministerial activities, especially regarding the Companies Bill. This led the
Financial TimesThe Financial Times is a British international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and is printed at 22 sites...
to write in a leading article that the DTI "should not have responsibility for business".
Remarks on Tony Blair's foreign policy
On 17 November 2006 it was reported in the
Islington Tribune that she described the Iraq war as a "big mistake in foreign affairs". Allegedly she also said that she was worried as far back as 1998 about Tony Blair's 'moral imperialism'. She apparently made these remarks at a
Fabian SocietyThe Fabian Society is a British intellectual socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up...
event dinner in North London.
Housing policy
In an article for
The ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In about the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a left-liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-History:The...
on 20 May 2007 Hodge argued that established families should take priority in the allocation of
social housingThe council house is a form of public or social housing, primarily referred to in the United Kingdom. Council houses were built and operated by local councils to supply uncrowded, well built homes on secure tenancies at below market rents to primarily working class people. Council house development...
over new economic migrants. These comments were condemned by the
Refugee CouncilThe Refugee Council is the United Kingdom's largest organisation working with refugees and asylum seekers. The organisation provides support and advice to refugees and asylum seekers, as well as support for other refugee and asylum seeker organisations...
and other bodies working in this field..
Voting Record
How Margaret Hodge voted on key issues since 2001:
- Has never voted on a transparent Parliament.
- Voted for introducing a smoking ban.
- Voted for introducing ID cards.
- Voted for introducing foundation hospitals.
- Voted for introducing student top-up fees.
- Voted for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
- Voted for the Iraq war.
- Voted against investigating the Iraq war.
- Voted for replacing Trident.
- Voted for the hunting ban.
- Voted for equal gay rights.
Gordon Brown's Government
On 27 June 2007, Hodge was appointed Minister of State at the
Department for Culture, Media and SportThe Department for Culture, Media and Sport is a department of the United Kingdom government, with responsibility for culture and sport in England, and some aspects of the media throughout the whole UK, for example broadcasting...
by the new
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the political leader of the United Kingdom and the Head of Her Majesty's Government...
,
Gordon BrownJames Gordon Brown is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party. Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007, after the resignation of Tony Blair and three days after becoming leader of the governing Labour Party...
. As Minister for Culture, Creative Industries and Tourism, she criticised the UK's foremost classical music festival, the Proms, for being insufficiently inclusive, instead praising television shows such as "Coronation Street".
Following the cabinet reshuffle of 3 October 2008, it was announced Hodge was resigning her ministerial position, "temporarily leaving Government on compassionate grounds of family illness and will return to Government in the spring". While she was caring for her terminally ill husband, she was replaced as Minister of State by
Barbara FollettDaphne Barbara Follett is a British politician - she is the Labour Member of Parliament for Stevenage, which she first won at the 1997 general election. She is married to author Ken Follett...
. On 22 September 2009, Hodge was reappointed Minister of State, as Minister for Culture and Tourism.
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