Mary Creagh
| Mary Creagh | |
|---|---|
|
| |
| Name | Mary Helen Creagh (born 2 December, 1967) |
| Politics | |
| Party | Labour |
| Constituency | Wakefield (2005 - present) |
| Positions | • Shadow Secretary of State for International Development (November 2014 - present) • Shadow Secretary of State for Transport (October 2013 - November 2014) • Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (October, 2010 - October 2013) |
| Likes | Clement Attlee, Middle England, cycling, yoga, gardening |
| Dislikes | Bath scalding |
| Friends | ? |
| Enemies | ? |
| Relationships | |
| Partners | Adrian Pulham (married 2001 - present) |
| Children | Clement (2002), Beatrice (2007) |
| Personal Attributes | |
| Nationality | English |
| Religion | Catholic |
| Sexuality | Straight |
| Height | 5' 6" |
| Eye Colour | Grey |
| Handedness | Right |
| Accent | Southern |
| Languages | French, Italian, some Spanish |
One of Labour's most effective Shadow Cabinet spokeswomen, Mary made a name for herself beating up a series of doomed Coalition DEFRA ministers. She secured a U-turn on Tory plans to sell off the national forests that got the Secretary of State sacked and gave her successor hell on the badger cull and flood defences. She attempted to stand for Labour Leader in 2015, but couldn't win enough nominations to make the ballot.
Life and Career[edit | edit source]
Early Life[edit | edit source]
Mary was born 1967 in Coventry to Irish immigrants, one of three siblings. Her father was a factory worker at Rolls Royce. Her mother Elizabeth was a primary school teacher and a trade union representative who cycled to work because they couldn't afford a car. Mary went to the Bishop Ullathorne School, a Catholic comprehensive, in Coventry and won a scholarship to read Modern Languages at Pembroke College, Oxford. She is fluent in French and Italian and later got a Masters in European Studies at the London School of Economics.
Pre-political Career[edit | edit source]
After university Mary couldn't find work in England, so she went to Brussels. She was an intern at the European Parliament for six months and then became a press officer for the European Youth Forum. She moved back to England four years later and took a job as the public affairs manager for the London Enterprise Agency while working on her Masters. After getting her degree she went into academia and taught entrepreneurship at the Cranfield University School of Management from 1997 to 2005.
Early Political Career[edit | edit source]
Mary was elected to the Islington Council as the Labour councillor for Highbury West in 1998, a role in which she continued to serve until she was elected to Parliament. She was the leader of the Labour opposition group from 2000 to 2004, and got into a massive wanky fight with the Liberal Democrats who controlled the council after charging them with cronyism over their Chief Executive appointment. After the longest investigation in its history the Standards Board for England concluded she was full of crap and the accusation was politically motivated, but it all kind of worked out because the five Lib Dems she'd accused lost their seats in the subsequent council elections and the Lib Dems lost control of the council.
Anyway the residual bad feeling didn't really matter from Mary's perspective, because by then she had been elected the Member of Parliament for distant Wakefield.
Parliamentary Career[edit | edit source]
On the Backbenches[edit | edit source]
Mary cares passionately about people not getting burned by their bathwater (no, seriously). In 2006 she began the "Hot Water Burns Like Fire" campaign to pressure the government to mandate that all new bathrooms be fitted with a device to monitor water temperature to prevent scalding. After three years of lobbying, the Labour government got sick of having medical experts lecture them on the perils of bathwater and gave in.
Emboldened by this success, Mary went on to lobby Justice Secretary Jack Straw to make it possible for foreign war criminals resident in the UK to be prosecuted in British courts. She succeeded in this campaign as well.
For most of the 2005-2010 Parliament Mary was Andy Burnham's PPS. She worked for him for an unusually long time and accompanied him to three different departments; presumably they bonded over being Catholic and extremely good looking.
Whips' Office[edit | edit source]
In June 2009 Mary joined the Whips' Office. What happened therein is of course shrouded in mystery, but she must have been pretty good because she vaulted directly from her post as a junior whip into the Shadow Cabinet.
In Opposition[edit | edit source]
Mary was promoted to Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in Ed Miliband's first Shadow Cabinet and swiftly proved to be one of his most effective shadow ministers. As well as leading the prettiest team (Mary + Huw Irranca-Davies meant the competition was over before it began), she forced the Government into a humiliating U-turn over Tory plans to sell off the national forests. DEFRA Secretary Caroline Spelman was sacked in disgrace, but her successor Owen Patterson fared little better: Mary thoroughly mauled him over the Government's idiotic badger cull, bio-controls and cuts in flood defences.
In 2013 she was reshuffled to Transport, where she asked the tough questions like "Why aren't there any female trains on Thomas the Tank Engine?" Her scrutiny of the Government was less robust, largely because Labour's policy of encouraging the public sector to bid for rail contracts was a little too leftwing for her and she couldn't advocate for it with much passion. She also got herself into trouble over HS2, since everyone in her constituency hates it.
In 2014 she was shuffled over to International Development, where she was more comfortable and widely agreed to be effective but completely wasted.
Leadership Bid[edit | edit source]
In 2015 Mary announced she was standing for the Labour leadership, throwing her hat into the Blairite corner of the ring along with Chuka Umunna and Liz Kendall. The sheer terribleness of the rest of the field (Liz Kendall: vacuous Blairbot, Chuka Umunna: flaked out after three days, Tristram Hunt: flaked out after zero days, Dan Jarvis: didn't stand, Keir Starmer: didn't stand) gave her some hope that she might become the rightwing candidate by default, but a series of mediocre, soundbite-riddled hustings performances put paid to that ambition.
She languished on seven nominations for weeks, but she assured the media that her extensive experience in the Whips' Office meant that these were just the tip of the iceberg. The lurkers supported her in email, and a full slate of thirty-five supporters would emerge blinking into the light when the time was right, like cicadas coming up to breed.
This turned out not to be the case.
Mary pulled out of the race on 12 June when it became clear she wouldn't get enough nominations to make the ballot to allow her supporters to back other candidates.[1]
| Full List of Appointments |
|---|
| • PPS to Andy Burnham (20 November, 2006 - 16 January, 2009) |
| • Assistant Whip (10 June, 2009 - 6 May, 2010) |
| • Opposition Assistant Whip (12 May, 2010 - 8 October, 2010) |
| • Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (8 October, 2010 - 7 October, 2013) |
| • Shadow Secretary of State for Transport (7 October, 2013 - 5 November, 2014) |
| • Shadow Secretary of State for International Development (5 November, 2014 - present) |
Personal Life[edit | edit source]
Mary's son Clement is named after Clement Attlee. He is fond of his model train set.
Ideology[edit | edit source]
Mary is rightwing but in a discreet, non-annoying way. Her late entry into Parliament and non-spad background meant she escaped the TBGB wars. She was one of the DMil > Ed Balls > EMil group in the 2010 leadership contest, valuing fighting fitness over ideology, and in that spirit she spent the Miliband era concentrating her fire on the Government instead of her Labour comrades.
So far her leadership campaign has had a refreshing lack of slagging-off-everyone-else.
Portrayal[edit | edit source]
In the Media[edit | edit source]
Mary hasn't cropped up much in the media.
In Fanon[edit | edit source]
Mary is notable in fandom primarily by her absence, which is strange because she's both gorgeous and impressively competent. Hopefully the 2015 Labour leadership contest will bring us the Mary/Andy and Mary/Yvette we've all been waiting for. Or failing that some Mary/Justine Greening foeyay.
