Margaret Hodge

Dame Margaret Eve Hodge, Lady Hodge, ("née" Oppenheimer; born 8 September 1944) is a British politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barking since 1994. A member of the Labour Party, she previously served as Leader of Islington London Borough Council from 1982 to 1992. She has held a number of ministerial roles and served as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee from 2010 to 2015.
Hodge was a Councillor on Islington Council from 1973 to 1994, was Chair of the Housing Committee, and then Council Leader from 1982 to 1992. Hodge later apologised for failing to ensure that allegations of serious child abuse in council-run homes were sufficiently investigated and for libelling a complainant.
Hodge was elected to parliament in a 1994 by-election. She was appointed Junior Minister for Disabled People in 1998 and promoted to Minister for Universities in 2001, subsequently becoming the first Children's Minister in 2003, joining the Privy Council. In 2005, Hodge became Minister of State in the Department for Work and Pensions with primary responsibility for employment. Hodge served as Minister of State for Culture and Tourism from 2007 to 2008 and 2009 until Labour left government following the 2010 United Kingdom general election.
Early life.
She was born on 8 September 1944 in Cairo, Egypt, to Jewish refugee parents Hans Oppenheimer (1908–1985), and his wife Lisbeth ("née" Hollitscher). Hans Oppenheimer left Stuttgart in Germany during the 1930s to join his uncle's metals business based in Cairo and Alexandria, where he met fellow émigrée, Austrian-born Lisbeth Hollitscher. Married in 1936, Hans and Lisbeth went on to have five children: four girls and a boy.
At the outset of World War II, the couple and their eldest daughter were rendered stateless, effectively stranded in the Kingdom of Egypt for the duration of the War. They decided to leave Egypt in 1948, concerned that antisemitism had increased in the Middle East during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The family moved to Orpington, Kent (present day Greater London), where the Oppenheimers started their family-owned steel-trading corporation, Stemcor. It is one of the world's largest privately held steel companies, with an annual turnover of over £6 billion in 2011. Hodge is a major shareholder, listing her holdings in the Parliamentary Register of Members' Interests. Stemcor was run by her brother, Ralph, until September 2013.
When Hodge was ten, in 1954, her mother died of stomach cancer. Hodge attended Bromley High School, followed by Oxford High School as a boarder. She went on to study at the London School of Economics, graduating with a third-class degree in Government in 1966.
Early career.
From 1966 to 1973, Hodge worked in market research at Unilever, and in PR at Weber Shandwick. From 1992 to 1994, she was a senior consultant at Price Waterhouse.
Islington Council.
Hodge was first elected as a Councillor for the London Borough of Islington at a by-election in 1973, representing the Barnsbury ward. She soon became Chairman of the Housing Committee. This was an important post in a local authority which had one of the worst set of housing statistics in London during a period when London boroughs were required to be housing providers and managers. Hodge's tenure as Housing Chairman oversaw the continuation of a large new housing programme. There was a change of emphasis to the refurbishment of sound older buildings ("e.g." Charteris Road, Alexander Road areas), in response to a paper published by the Islington Housing Action Group.
The Islington Labour Party was badly affected by the defection of members and elected representatives to the Social Democratic Party. Hodge emerged as Council Leader in 1982, a post she held until 1992. Hodge was appointed MBE in 1978. At that year's council election, she was elected to Thornhill ward, before being representing Barnsbury again at the 1982 election, and moving to Sussex ward at the 1986 election. She stood down from the council at the 1994 election.
Child abuse controversy.
The end of Hodge's service on Islington Council, prior to her entering Parliament, was marred by the emergence of serious child abuse allegations concerning Council-run children's homes in Islington. She has apologised several times since the emergence of the scandal in the 1980s that directly linked her council tenure with what she admitted in 2014 was "shameful naivety" in ignoring the complaints of paedophile victims.
In 1985, Demetrios Panton wrote to Islington Council to complain about abuse suffered while in Council care during the 1970s and 1980s. Panton received an official response in 1989, in which the Council denied all responsibility. In 1990, Liz Davies, a senior social worker employed by the borough with her manager, David Cofie, raised concerns about sexual abuse of children under the care of Islington Council. Correspondence between Hodge and the then Director of Social Work indicates that Hodge declined a request for extra investigative resources. Instead, the Cofie–Davies investigation was dismissed by council officials in May 1990 after the police declared they had found insufficient evidence of abuse; despite this, the two social workers continued their enquiries.
In 1992, the "Evening Standard" resumed reporting allegations of abuse in the Islington Care Homes. Its initial report was slated by Hodge as a "sensationalist piece of gutter journalism", although she has since apologised, claiming that her officials had given her false information. In 1995, the "White Report" into sexual abuse in Islington Care Homes confirmed that the council had failed to adequately investigate the allegations, claiming that its doctrinaire interpretation of equal opportunities created a climate of fear at being labelled homophobic.
In 2003, following Hodge's appointment as Minister for Children, Panton went public with his allegations that he had been the subject of abuse in Islington Council care and that, although he had repeatedly raised the matter, he had been ignored. He identified Hodge's complacency as ultimately responsible for the abuse that he alleged he had suffered. Liz Davies simultaneously went public regarding the concerns she had previously raised while working for the council. Following a media campaign by several national newspapers calling for Hodge to resign from her new post, she wrote to Panton, apologising for referring to him as "an extremely disturbed person" in an earlier letter to the Chairman of the BBC Gavyn Davies, which had been broadcast on Radio 4's "Today" programme. This was subsequently brought to the floor of the House of Commons in Prime Minister's Questions by opposition leader Michael Howard. A formal apology to Panton was made in the High Court on 19 November 2003 by Lady Hodge's barrister together with a financial settlement of £30,000.
In April 2014, Education Secretary Michael Gove instigated investigations into 21 children's homes nationally, where new evidence suggested Jimmy Savile might have abused young people, including one in Islington during the period Hodge was leader. This prompted Hodge to issue a further apology stating "our naivety was shameful". The investigation failed to reach any firm conclusions.
Parliamentary career.
Hodge has served as the Labour MP for Barking since the by-election on 9 June 1994 following the death of Jo Richardson. Whilst still a new MP, she endorsed the candidature of Tony Blair, a former Islington neighbour, for the Labour Party Labour leadership, after the sudden death of John Smith from a heart attack. In 2017, she had a majority of 21,608.
Ministerial roles.
Hodge was appointed Junior Minister for Disabled People in 1998 and was promoted Minister for Universities at the new Department for Education and Skills in 2001, in which capacity she piloted the controversial Higher Education Act 2004, remaining in post until 2003 when she became the inaugural Children's Minister. She was sworn into the Privy Council on 22 June 2003.
In 2003, Hodge was appointed to the newly created high-profile role of Children's minister, which included responsibility for Special Education, Early Years Education and Childcare, the Young People's Unit, teenage pregnancy, the Family Policy Unit, and general responsibility for child welfare.
In 2005, Hodge was moved to become Minister of State in the Department for Work and Pensions with primary responsibility for employment. On 17 June 2005, she was criticised for saying that former employees of MG Rover would be able to obtain jobs at Tesco, a local supermarket. Later, she claimed that this was not what she meant, rather that; she had empathy for those losing their jobs, and was pointing to a new Tesco supermarket as an example of new jobs being created in the area in face of the redundancies at the car manufacturing plant.
On 27 June 2007, Hodge was reappointed Minister of State in the Department for Culture by new Prime Minister Gordon Brown. As Minister of State for Culture, Creative Industries and Tourism, she was quick to criticise Britain's foremost classical music festival, The Proms, for not being sufficiently inclusive, instead praising popular television shows such as "Coronation Street". Following the Cabinet reshuffle of 3 October 2008, it was announced that Hodge was "temporarily leaving Government on compassionate grounds of family illness and will return to Government in the Spring". While she was absent from the Government, she was temporarily replaced as Minister of State by Barbara Follett. Hodge was reappointed Minister of State responsible for Culture and Tourism on 22 September 2009. In January 2010, Hodge announced that Royal Parks, which manages Richmond Park and Bushy Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames among others, was to be allowed to charge car drivers £2 per visit. This announcement sparked protests in South London and was opposed by local politicians including: Conservative Zac Goldsmith, Liberal Democrats Sir Vince Cable and Baroness Kramer.
Barking and the BNP.
Hodge once called for British born families to have priority on council house waiting lists over immigrants. This comment received praise from the far-right political party the BNP and led to calls for Hodge to resign. However her comments would be defended by her colleagues.
In April 2006, Hodge commented in an interview with "The Sunday Telegraph" that eight out of ten white working-class voters in her constituency might be tempted to vote for the British National Party (BNP) at the May 2006 local elections 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 widespread media coverage of her remarks, and Hodge was strongly criticised for giving the BNP publicity. The BNP went on to gain eleven council seats at the 2006 election out of a total of 51, making them the second-largest party. It was reported that Labour activists accused Hodge of generating hundreds of extra votes for the BNP, and that local members began to privately discuss the possibility of a move to deselect her. The GMB wrote to Hodge in May 2006, demanding her resignation.
Writing in "The Observer" on 20 May 2007 Hodge argued that established families should take priority in the allocation of social housing over new economic migrants, stating that "We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants." Her comments were condemned by the Refugee Council and other representative bodies.
In November 2009, the Leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, announced that he intended to contest the Barking seat at the 2010 general election. In spite of the union's position, Hodge was the Labour candidate and was returned as the Member of Parliament, doubling her majority, whilst Griffin finished in third place behind the Conservatives. The BNP lost all their council seats in the 2010 election.
Public Accounts Committee.
Hodge was elected by MPs to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee on 10 June 2010 in the fifth round of voting using the single transferable vote system. According to Peter Riddell, under Hodge's leadership, the PAC has held Civil Servants to account using procedure contrary to established practice. Gus O'Donnell, then head of the Civil service, accused her of presiding over a "theatrical exercise in public humiliation" while Alan Duncan accused her of being "abusive and bullying" towards Rona Fairhead.
The Oppenheimers' family company, Stemcor, which had been founded by Hodge's father, Hans Oppenheimer, was run by her brother, Ralph, until September 2013. In November 2012, Helia Ebrahimi, "The Daily Telegraph"s City Correspondent, raised the issue of Hodge's suitability as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, reporting that her family's company "pays just 0.01pc tax on £2.1bn of business generated in the UK". This led to an investigation into the tax arrangements of a number of American companies operating in the United Kingdom. In April 2015, "The Times" reported that Hodge had benefited from the closure in 2011 of a Liechtenstein foundation which held shares in Stemcor, using the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility, a legal means of returning undisclosed assets to the UK with reduced penalties. Hodge gained 96,000 shares worth £1,500,000 as a result. Hodge said she had played no part in administering or establishing the scheme. She explained: "All I could do as a shareholder in a company not run by me, and over which I had no influence or control, was to ensure that any shares I held were above board and that I paid all relevant taxes in full. Every time I received any benefit from the company this happened."
Shortly after Labour's defeat at the 2015 general election, it emerged that Hodge would not be standing for re-election to the Public Accounts Committee. She was succeeded as Chair in June 2015 by Meg Hillier. Hodge has since written a book about her time as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee entitled "Called to Account".
Garden Bridge Project review.
In September 2016, London Mayor Sadiq Khan asked Hodge to review the Garden Bridge project. Hodge was tasked with determining whether value for money was achieved from the taxpayers' £60,000,000 contribution to the bridge, as well as investigate whether transparency standards were met by public bodies. In April 2017, Hodge's review was published. Hodge recommended that 'It would be better for the taxpayer to accept the financial loss of cancelling the project than to risk the potential uncertain additional costs to the public purse if the project proceeds.' The report found that decisions on the Garden Bridge were driven more by electoral cycles than value for taxpayers' money, and that there was not an open, fair and competitive process around two procurements. In response, the BBC's transport correspondent, Tom Edwards, reported that 'I can't remember reading a report so damning of a transport project.'
In June 2017, Andrew Boff, a Conservative member of the London Assembly, criticised Margaret Hodge's report on the Garden Bridge, and claimed that she broke Parliamentary rules during her research. In December 2017, the Parliamentary Standards Committee found that Hodge had breached the MPs' code of conduct. The code states MPs should use public resources only "in support of parliamentary duties". The committee ruled that, because the review had been commissioned by an outside body, it been not been carried out as part of Hodge's parliamentary activities. The committee recommended that Hodge apologise to the House of Commons for the breach on a point of order. Hodge subsequently apologised and said "I carried out this inquiry in good faith and in the public interest. "I think all MPs would benefit from greater clarity in the rules governing the use of offices." Hodge later repaid £2.97, which represented the cost of House of Commons stationery, after the committee's report found that she should not have used Parliamentary resources for her review. In response to the findings of the Parliamentary Standards Committee's investigation, Andrew Boff said the committee's findings left "a sour taste", and claimed that he found it 'hard to believe [Hodge] was unaware of the rules."
Views.
At a keynote speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research on 26 November 2004, Hodge defended the concept of greater state regulation of individuals' choices, asserting only that "some may call it the nanny state but I call it a force for good".
On 17 November 2006, it was reported by the "Islington Tribune" that Hodge described the Iraq War as a "big mistake in foreign affairs". This report, relayed by BBC News, appeared to cast doubt on Hodge's confidence in Tony Blair's foreign policy since 1998. A Downing Street spokesperson responded by pointing out that "Margaret Hodge voted for military action in Iraq. Since then, she has always spoken in favour of it."
In the 2015 Labour Party leadership election, she nominated Liz Kendall.
In June 2016, together with Ann Coffey, Hodge called for a motion of no confidence in party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The following month, she supported Owen Smith in the 2016 Labour Party (UK) leadership election.
Views on antisemitism in Labour.
In July 2018, the National Executive Committee (NEC) adopted a code of conduct on antisemitism which was based on the IHRA's working definition while omitting or modifying examples of antisemitism, including defining how criticism of Israel can be antisemitic. Hodge subsequently said that Labour's refusal to adopt the full set of unamended examples for disciplinary purposes "make the party a hostile environment for Jews. It chose to entrench antisemitism ... This means that in 2018 a party member can call a Jew a Nazi and face little consequence." In contrast, a coalition of 36 international Jewish anti-Zionist groups signed a letter of opposition to the IHRA definition, calling it a "distorted definition of antisemitism to stifle criticism of Israel". Labour said all the examples were covered by other parts of the code. After the adoption of the new code, Hodge confronted Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in parliament and called him "a fucking antisemite and a racist". The Party initiated a disciplinary investigation of the incident, with a spokesperson saying that "The rules of the Parliamentary Labour Party are quite clear, that colleagues have to treat each other with respect and not bring the party into disrepute and that is why action will be taken." The investigation was terminated following fears that MPs would resign had it continued. A Labour spokesperson said that Hodge "expressed regret" for her remarks: however, Hodge said that there were "no apologies, on either side". Hodge said that the prospect of an investigation had made her think about "what it felt like to be a Jew in Germany in the 30s", a remark described by one commentator as "absurd" and "grotesque".
In March 2019, Hodge made a secret recording of a meeting she had with Corbyn. The recording was later passed to The "Sunday Times" which published extracts. In the recording, Corbyn said that some evidence of complaints was being mislaid, ignored or not used, which was why he had asked Lord Falconer to review the process. Corbyn later wrote to Hodge to convey his disappointment at what he considered "to be a total breach of trust and privacy". In the same month, she proposed that the party close down constituencies that passed motions critical of individual investigations or of the IHRA's Working Definition.
In June 2019, Hodge condemned the reinstatement to Labour of Chris Williamson who was investigated for comments he made on antisemitism in the Labour Party.
In July 2019, Hodge called for a new and entirely independent system to handle antisemitism disciplinary proceedings in the Labour party as, she said, political interference has corrupted the current system. The party rejected her claim as unfounded. She also stated that matters had only become worse since she confronted Corbyn a year before.
In September 2019, Hodge said "I'm not going to give up until Jeremy Corbyn ceases to be leader of the Labour Party."
In July 2018, she accepted an invitation to become an honorary patron of the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA). In the run up to the 2019 general election, CAA asked her to resign because she was standing as a Labour Party candidate; she did so but described their decision as "both astonishing and wounding", showing a lack of respect and impugning her integrity.
Antisemitism investigation.
In July 2019, Hodge shared with the media a clandestine photo of Corbyn meeting Charedi activist Shraga Stern. Hodge tweeted that "Having lunch & wondering why Corbyn wants to be seen talking to an anti-LGBT activist who doesn't represent the mainstream Jewish community yet chooses to sideline groups like Jewish Labour." Stern subsequently lodged a formal complaint with the Labour Party that Hodge's tweet was an "antisemitic attack" and sidelined him as a "second-class Jew".
Other events.
In 2004, Fathers 4 Justice campaigner Jonathan Stanesby handcuffed Hodge, stating he was arresting her for child abuse. Fathers 4 Justice targeted Hodge perceiving her as the "bogeywoman of family law, who doesn't even believe in equal parenting". Stanesby and collaborator Jason Hatch were acquitted of the charge of false imprisonment which they successfully defended as a reasonable form of political protest.
In June 2019, the TSSA conference passed a motion criticising Hodge for "endorsing tactical voting, including voting for candidates other than Labour" in the 2019 European Parliament election, pointing out that this was a breach of party rules and should result in automatic removal of membership.
On 28 September 2019, Barking Labour members voted in a 'trigger ballot' to hold a full selection process to choose their parliamentary candidate for the next general election, rather than automatically reselecting Hodge. She said she wished to stand and was automatically included in an all woman shortlist. According to one local member, factors in the decision to hold a selection process included her age, the desire to have an MP who lives in the area and support for the principles of accountability and local democracy. On Monday 28 October 2019, Hodge was reselected.
Non-political roles.
Since November 2018, Hodge has been Chair of Council at Royal Holloway, University of London, following the Privy Council consenting to the position being remunerated.
Personal life.
Hodge describes herself as a secular Jew, but that her religious background is "what defines me". Hodge married Andrew Watson in 1968; the couple had one son and a daughter, Lizzi Watson, a BBC journalist who was appointed deputy editor of BBC News at 6 pm and 10 pm in February 2018. They divorced in 1978 and in the same year she married Henry Hodge (later Sir Henry), by whom she had two more daughters. He was a solicitor who was appointed as a High Court Judge in 2004. He died in 2009.
Use of offshore tax haven.
In 2015 there was considerable controversy about her benefiting, to the tune of £1.5 million from assets repatriated from a Lichtenstein trust in 2011 using the Liechtenstein disclosure facility, that reduced penalties and removed the risk of prosecution for Britons moving undeclared assets back to the UK. Coverage focused on the apparent hypocrisy in her condemnation of the use of tax havens.
Honours.
Hodge was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1978, and promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the Dissolution Honours List of 27 August 2015.


Geeta Mukherjee

Geeta Mukherjee (8 January 1924 – 4 March 2000) was an Indian politician and social worker and a four times MLA from Panskura Purba, from 1967 to 1977. As a Member of Parliament, she was elected seven times from the Panskura constituency, from 1980 to 2000, in the Indian state of West Bengal being a Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate. She also remained the president of National Federation of Indian Women, women's wing of Communist Party of India. She led the demand for the legislature of 1/3rd reservation for women in parliamentary elections in India.
Early life and education.
She was born on 8 January 1924 in Calcutta, West Bengal. She was married to Biswanath Mukherjee on 8 November 1942.
Mukherjee completed Bachelor of Arts In Bengali Literature from Ashutosh College, Calcutta. She remained secretary of Bengal Provincial Students Federation from 1947 to 1951.
Career.
She was first elected as Member, State Council, Communist Party of India (C.P.I.), Bengal in 1946. Popularly known as Geetadi, Geeta Mukherjee since then won every Lok Sabha election from Panskura in West Bengal, and was in the forefront till her death in 2000.
She was elected to 7th Lok Sabha in 1980 and during 1980–84, she served as
Since 1981 onwards, she was the Member of National Executive Council, Communist Party of India.
She was elected to her 7th term during the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999. Her career spanned about five and half decades. However, it was her role in the women's reservation issue which brought her into the limelight. She was also a member of the National Commission on Rural Labour, National Commission on Women, National Children's Board, Press Council and vice-president of the National Federation of Women, besides being a secretariat member of the Women's International Democratic Federation, Berlin.
Besides her political career, she also wrote a few books for children, including "Bharat Upakatha" (Folktales of India), "Chotoder Rabindranath" (Tagore for Children)and "He Atit Katha Kao"; and translated Bruno Apitz's 1958 classic "Naked Among Wolves" to Bengali.
Death.
Mukherjee died on 4 March 2000, following a massive heart-attack. At the time of death, she was 76 years old. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister of India, told in his condolence message— "Mrs. Mukherjee embodied determination and dedication. She was a shining example of women's empowerment. Her life shall remain an inspiration for future generations, especially women."


Marian Barry

Marian Barry (1 October 1871 - 8 September 1921) was an Irish trade unionist.
Barry was born at Skibbereen, County Cork, a daughter of John and Mary (née Ronan) Barry. She followed her parents into tailoring, and moved to London when she was around twenty years old. There, she joined a union for female tailors, which soon affiliated to the Women's Trade Union League. Barry soon became a spokesperson for the league, and was elected as its assistant secretary in 1896.
She often attended the London Trades Council, which supported her successful nomination to London County Council's technical education board in 1897.
Through her trade union work, Barry this met Pete Curran, the two marrying in 1897 or 1898, and she thereafter was known as "Mrs Pete Curran". The couple had four children, and Marian withdrew from political activity until 1906 in order to bring them up.
In 1906, Barry was appointed as an organiser for the Women's Trade Union League. She founded a branch in Jarrow, where her husband won a by-election, in 1907, a campaign in which Marian was prominent. She campaigned locally for reforms including free school meals, and was elected to the League's executive in 1908. She is believed to have also campaigned for women's suffrage.
Pete Curran lost his seat in 1910 and died shortly afterwards. Marian relocated to Hackney, where she was active on the local employment exchange. She died at Brighton in 1921.


Qi Qiaoqiao

Qi Qiaoqiao (born 1 March 1949) is a Chinese businesswoman, former civil official, and elder sister to Xi Jinping, current Chinese Communist Party general secretary and Paramount leader of China.
Early life and education.
Qi was born in Yan'an in 1949 to Qi Xin, the second wife of Communist elder, Xi Zhongxun. At the age of three, Qi moved with her family to Beijing, where she was entered into the kindergarten at Beihai north of the Forbidden City.
In 1962, Qi entered Hebei Beijing Middle School (), which had been one of the few middle schools to participate in the student protests of 1935 that demanded the Nationalist government actively resist the invading Japanese army. When she enrolled, her father insisted that she be registered under her mother's surname, Qi. He also paid for her to board at the school throughout the week. As the daughter of a revolutionary family, Qi was made a member of her school's communist party and served as secretary for her class' communist party. During this time, she contracted tuberculosis; the disease that killed both her paternal grandparents. Qi recovered after three months, however, and passed her junior year exams.
Cultural Revolution.
Late in 1962, Xi Zhongxun was denounced and his children were branded 'children of a criminal' (). Qi was made to attend a special class at school to educate her on the principles of Marxism, along with the children of other disgraced officials and difficult students. When her mother returned home one day having been beaten, Qi also consoled her siblings.
In 1969, after the government started the Down to the Countryside Movement, Qi was officially excluded from joining the army, but managed to persuade the recruitment agency for the Inner Mongolia branch to allow her to join them. She was assigned to a rural team near Tongliao city, where she stayed for over six years. Along with the other labourers, Qi was paid 5 Yuan per 10 days for constructing ditches and irrigation systems. Qi later stated that dysentery was so common that it was almost like the common cold. Once, when she was running a fever, Qi was sent to collect water and nearly fainted into the pit. She was later transferred to another team near Tongliao.
In February 1978, Qi's father was rehabilitated and he was sent to work in Guangdong; Qi accompanied him as his secretary. While there, Qi attended the First Military Medical University, but she suspended her studies due to health reasons. On her recovery, Qi worked in the Military Communications Bureau of Guangzhou, where she was responsible for repatriating Vietnamese female prisoners of war. When her father returned to Beijing, Qi went with him and enrolled in the Foreign Affairs College.
Career.
After graduation, Qi worked for the police as deputy director of the General Office and director of the Foreign Affairs Bureau.
In 2002, Qi Xin advised her daughter to seek employment after the death of her father. Though Qi argued that, being 50, she was close to retirement, she enrolled on an EMBA course at Tsinghua University in 2004. Qi set-up the company Qinchuan Dadi Investment Limited () in 2007, along with her husband Deng Jiagui. The company predominantly invests in the mining sector and real estate.
In 2014, multiple news agencies reported that Xi Jinping, Qi's brother and newly Chinese leader, had instructed her to sell her assets and withdraw from the business world.
Businesses.
In addition to Qinchuan Dadi Investment Limited, Qi co-owns Shenzhen Yuanwei Investment Company with her husband. Qi is thought to own, directly or through her daughter and husband, company shares and real estate valued in the hundreds of millions of United States dollars.
Qi has bought shares in various companies, including the Wanda Commerce Real Estate Company, which she purchased with Deng Jiagui for US$28.6 million in 2009. Qi and her husband transferred the shares in 2013, supposedly to an employee, so that the couple could avoid claims of conflict of interest.
Property.
In 2020, the New York Times released a report which mentioned Qi Qiaoqiao and her daughter, Zhang Yannan. Qi Qiaoqiao was shown to have bought property in Hong Kong as early as 1991, with a 2012 Bloomberg report stating that the property was bought for HK $3 million at the Pacific Palisades complex in Braemar Hill. The Bloomberg report also mentioned that Qi would sometimes use the alias Chai Lin-hing for ownership of companies and property.
In 2005, her daughter, Zhang Yannan was transferred a property from her parents, a unit at Regent on the Park in Mid-Levels. Zhang Yannan was also shown to own a villa at Repulse Bay Garden on Belleview Drive in Repulse Bay, bought in 2009 for US $19.3 million. Along with that property, the New York Times found that Zhang Yannan owns at least 5 other properties in Hong Kong, with Bloomberg specifying that 4 of the units are at the Convention Plaza Apartments in Wan Chai.


Photini Tzavela

Photini Kolokotroni–Tzavela (; 1809/11 in Corfu – 1890 in Athens) served as Lady-in-Waiting at the royal court of King Otto. She was the daughter of the chieftain Photos Tzavelas, sister of Kitsos Tzavelas, prime minister of Greece, wife of Ioannis (Gennaios) Kolokotronis, also prime minister and mother of the journalist Theodoros (alias Phalez) Kolokotronis.
Biography.
She was born in Corfu on November 12, 1809 or, according to another theory, on September 27, 1811, daughter of the Souliote chieftain Photos Tzavelas and sister of the Greek War of Independence fighter and later prime minister of Greece, Kitsos Tzavelas. It is said that on the day when she was born, her father was poisoned by Ali Pasha’s agents and she therefore took her name from him. In 1820 she returned together with her family and the rest of the Souliotes in Souli, but in September 1822 she again had to flee, this time to Missolonghi.
After the Fall of Missolonghi, in 1827 she found refuge in Nafplio. She there married, during the next year, to Theodoros Kolokotronis’s son Gennaios. Among the wedding gifts she received, were a pair of bracelets, offered by Ioannis Kapodistrias, governor of Greece. This marriage signalled among other things the political alliance between the Tzavelas and Kolokotronis clans.
During the reign of King Otto, Photini Kolokotroni became lady in waiting at the royal court and a personal councillor to Queen Amalia. With Ioannis Kolokotronis she had seven children: two sons, Theodoros (alias Phalez) and Konstantinos, as well as five daughters, Georgitsa Petimeza, Aikaterini Rodiou, Eleni Zotou, Zoitsa Manotou and Efrosyni, who remained unmarried.
She died in Athens on September 26, 1890 after a long and painful disease. Her funeral took place on the next day in the church of Agios Georgios in Athens.


Ida Kleijnen

Ida Kleijnen (17 March 1936 – 15 January 2019) was a Dutch chef.
Kleijnen was born on 17 March 1936. She was self-taught.
She worked at the Prinses Juliana before turning her guest house into a restaurant called De Lindenhorst. She won a Michelin star in 1983 which she held onto until 1994 when she handed the business over to her son, Paul.
In 1991, she was voted the best female chef in the Netherlands and between 1997 and 2010, she gave cooking lessons.
She died on 15 January 2019.


Mabel FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester

Mabel FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester (c. 1100 – 29 September 1157) was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman, and a wealthy heiress who brought the lordship of Gloucester, among other prestigious honours to her husband, Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester upon their marriage. He was the illegitimate son of King Henry I of England.
Her father was Robert Fitzhamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan. As she was the eldest daughter of four, and her younger sisters had become nuns, Mabel inherited all of his honours and properties upon his death in 1107.
As Countess of Gloucester, Mabel was significant politically and she exercised an important administrative role in the lordship.
Family.
Mabel was born in Gloucestershire, England c. 1100, the eldest of the four daughters of Robert FitzHamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan, and his wife, Sybil de Montgomery. Her three younger sisters, Hawise, Cecile and Amice all became nuns, making Mabel the sole heiress to her father's lordships and vast estates in England, Wales, and Normandy.
Her paternal grandfather was Hamon, Sheriff of Kent, and her maternal grandparents were Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Mabel de Bellême.
In March 1107, her father died in Normandy, leaving his lordships and estates to Mabel. Her mother married secondly Jean, Sire de Raimes.
Marriage.
In June 1119, Mabel's marriage to Robert of Caen (also called FitzRoy and FitzEdith), an illegitimate son of King Henry I (not by his mistress Sybil Corbet - other sources say Robert's mother was of the Gai family of Oxfordshire), was solemnized. Their marriage may have been contracted as early as 1107 and is recorded by "Orderic Vitalis" who also names her parents. He would later become an important figure during the turbulent period in English history known as The Anarchy which occurred in the reign of King Stephen of England. Throughout the civil war, he was a loyal supporter of his half-sister Empress Matilda who would make him the chief commander of her army. He had originally sworn fealty to King Stephen, but after quarrelling with him in 1137, his English and Welsh possessions were forfeited, and thus he joined forces with Matilda.
Countess of Gloucester.
Mabel brought to her husband the honours of Gloucester in England, Glamorgan in Wales, Sainte-Scholasse-sur-Sarthe, Evrecy and Creully in Normandy. By right of his wife, he became the 2nd Lord of Glamorgan, and gained possession of her father's castle of Cardiff in Wales. In August 1122, he was created 1st Earl of Gloucester; henceforth, Mabel was styled as Countess of Gloucester.
As countess, Mabel exercised a prominent administrative role in the Gloucester lordship. Her political importance was evident when she was made responsible for seeing that her husband upheld his side of the agreement in the treaty he made with Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford. She also witnessed four of Robert's charters; as well as giving her personal consent for his foundation of the Abbey of Margam, whose endowment came from her own lands. Later, after Robert's death, Mabel assumed control of the honour of Gloucester's Norman lands on behalf of her eldest son William.
Issue.
Together Robert and Mabel had at least eight children:
Robert also sired an illegitimate son, Richard, Bishop of Bayeux by Isabel de Douvres.
Death.
Mabel's husband died on 31 October 1147. Mabel herself died on 29 September 1157 in Bristol at the age of sixty-seven years. She was buried at St James' Priory, Bristol.


Helaine Head

Helaine Head (born January 17, 1947 in Los Angeles, California) is an American film, television, and theatre director.
Career.
In television, some of her directing credits are "St. Elsewhere", "Cagney & Lacey", "Frank's Place", "L.A. Law", "Wiseguy", "Tour of Duty", "Brewster Place", "seaQuest 2032", "Law & Order" and "Sliders". She has also directed a number of television films.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, Head worked as a theatre director and stage manager in a number of stage productions on Broadway.
In 1990, Head directed "The Danger Team", a 24-minute claymation special intended to be the pilot episode of a potentially longer running TV show. The pilot aired on ABC on July 3, 1991, and featured claymation mixed with live actors. The pilot episode was poorly received and was not picked up for a full series.
In the 2000s, Head became an associate professor of directing at USC School of Cinematic Arts.


Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Deborah Wasserman Schultz (née Wasserman; born September 27, 1966) is an American politician serving as the U.S. Representative from , first elected to Congress in 2004. A member of the Democratic Party, she is a former Chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Wasserman Schultz served in the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate and was a national campaign co-chair for Hillary Clinton's 2008 run for president. Her district covers much of southern Broward County, including a large portion of Fort Lauderdale. It also covers much of northern Miami-Dade County.
Wasserman Schultz was elected chair of the Democratic National Committee in May 2011, replacing Tim Kaine. On July 28, 2016, Wasserman Schultz resigned from her position after WikiLeaks released a collection of stolen emails indicating that Wasserman Schultz and other members of the DNC staff had favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries.
Personal life and education.
Born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, she is the daughter of Ann and Larry Wasserman. Her father is a Certified Public Accountant, and her brother Steven Wasserman is an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
From 1968 to 1978, the family lived in Lido Beach on Long Island. In 1978, her family moved to Melville, also on Long Island, where she graduated from Half Hollow Hills High School East in 1984. She received a Bachelor of Arts in 1988 and a Master of Arts with a certificate in political campaigning in 1990, both in political science, from the University of Florida.
At the University of Florida, Wasserman Schultz was active in student government, serving as president of the Student Senate and the founder and president of the Rawlings Area Council Government. She was also a member of the Omicron Delta Kappa honor society, the James C. Grimm chapter of the National Residence Hall Honorary, and the union Graduate Assistants United. She served as president of the Graduate Student Council and vice president of the UF College Democrats. She has credited her experience in student politics with developing her "love for politics and the political process."
Wasserman Schultz lives in Weston, near Fort Lauderdale. She is married to Steve Schultz; they have three children together. She is an active member of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Planned Parenthood, and Hadassah.
In March 2009, she revealed that she had undergone seven surgeries related to breast cancer in 2008, while maintaining her responsibilities as a member of the House. That year, she promoted efforts for early screening for breast cancer.
Career.
Florida state legislature.
In 1988, Wasserman Schultz became an aide to Peter Deutsch at the beginning of his state legislative career. In 1992, Deutsch successfully ran for United States Representative of Florida's 20th congressional district, and suggested to Wasserman Schultz that she run for his vacated seat in the Florida House of Representatives. Wasserman Schultz won 53 percent of the vote in a six-way Democratic primary, avoiding a runoff. She also won the general election for this seat. At age 26, she became the youngest female legislator in the state's history.
She served four terms in the Florida State House of Representatives, for eight years, leaving due to state term limits. She became an adjunct instructor of political science at Broward Community College, as well as a public policy curriculum specialist at Nova Southeastern University.
Based on her political experience, Wasserman Schultz ran successfully for the Florida State Senate in 2000. She supported several bills, including the Florida Residential Swimming Pool Safety Act and one creating a Children's Services Council for Broward County. She received an award from the Save The Manatee Club for her commitment as a state senator in the 2002 legislative session to manatee protection.
U.S. House of Representatives.
Party leadership.
She was appointed to the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee in her first term. During the 2006 elections, she raised over $17 million in campaign contributions for her Democratic colleagues (third-most after Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel), she was chosen as Chief Deputy Whip and appointed to the Appropriations Committee, a plum assignment for a sophomore congresswoman.
She currently chairs the Committee's Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies. Shortly after acquiring her spot on the Appropriations Committee, Wasserman Schultz received a waiver necessary to sit on an additional committee (Appropriations is typically an exclusive committee), and she is currently a member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform. Aside from her committee and leadership roles, she was a member of Nancy Pelosi's "30 Something" Working Group, which consists of congressional Democrats mostly under age 40. The group concentrates on issues affecting young people, including Social Security. She joined the bipartisan Congressional Cuba Democracy Caucus. According to the "Congress.org" 2008 Power Rankings, she was the 24th-most powerful member of the House, the 22nd-most powerful Democratic representative, and the most powerful Florida representative.
Political positions.
Wasserman Schultz supports gun control legislation and the LGBT community. She initiated the 2007 Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act. In 2011, Wasserman Schultz was one of the 23 co-sponsors of H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
On April 25, 2018, 57 members of the House of Representatives, including Wasserman Schultz, released a condemnation of Holocaust distortion in Ukraine and Poland. They criticized Poland's new Holocaust law, which would criminalize accusing Poles of complicity in the Holocaust, and Ukraine's 2015 memory laws glorifying Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and its pro-Nazi leaders, such as Roman Shukhevych.
In December 2019, Wasserman Schultz voted to impeach President Trump.
Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and payday lending.
In December 2015, Wasserman Schultz was one of 24 co-sponsors of H.R. 4018, authored by GOP Congressman Dennis A. Ross, which would delay the implementation of CFPB regulations. Wasserman Schultz was among a dozen Florida representatives who cosponsored the legislation that would delay the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's payday lending rules by two years and void a "deferred presentment transaction" in states with laws similar to Florida's. She has drawn criticism for trying to delay those regulations.
Terri Schiavo case.
The Terri Schiavo case was related to the fate of a young woman in Florida who had suffered brain damage after a heart attack in 1990 and was in a coma on life support. Her husband, who was her legal guardian while engaged to another woman, and the medical team wanted to remove her feeding tube, as she was in a "persistent vegetative state" with no hope of improvement. Her parents opposed this decision for years, appealing to courts, Congress, and ultimately to President George W. Bush to intervene. Wasserman Schultz was one of the strongest opponents of congressional intervention in what she believed should be a private family decision. The feeding tube was removed in 2005, resulting in Schiavo's death.
Wasserman Schultz publicly accused President George W. Bush of hypocrisy for having signed a 1999 bill as Governor of Texas that allows health care workers to remove life support for terminally ill patients if the patient or family is unable to pay the medical bills. During the debate, Wasserman Schultz pointed out that a Texas law signed by Gov. Bush allowed caregivers to withhold treatment "at the point that futility has been reached and there is no longer any hope of survival or of additional health care measures being used to sustain life. ... [this] seems to conflict with his position today." Cox News Service reported that "The Texas law was intended to control in cases in which medical teams and patients' representatives disagree on treatment. In the Schiavo case, the medical team and Schiavo's husband agreed that there was no hope of improvement in her condition, determined by lower courts to be a 'persistent vegetative state'." Wasserman Schultz also cited the case of .
Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
While her predecessor and mentor Peter Deutsch was "among the most hawkish congressional Democrats on Middle East issues", Wasserman Schultz, who took over his seat for Florida's 20th district, "a heavily Jewish swath of Broward County", has taken a more centrist approach. During 2005 she spoke in approval of President George W. Bush's proposals to give financial aid to the Palestinian Authority in both the proposed supplemental and in the 2006 budgets. She said:
We want to continue to focus on making sure that ... the policy coming from Washington continues to encourage and support and nurture the peace process. In [Bush's] first four years, there was a lack of leadership coming from the administration. I know many people in the Jewish community were happy with the president's position on Israel, but the way I thought, there was an absence of leadership.  ... So I'm glad to see there's a little more engagement and involvement from the administration.
Wasserman Schultz is a supporter of Israel. She defended her party against suggestions that the Democrats are anti-Israel, saying:
I would stack up the Democratic caucus's position on the support for Israel against the Republican caucus's any day of the week and be much more confident—and the Jewish community should be much more confident—in the Democrats' stewardship of Israel than the Republicans, especially if you compare the underlying reasons for both groups' support for Israel. The very far right group of Republicans' interest in Israel is not because they are so supportive of there being a Jewish state and making sure that Jews have a place that we can call home. It has references to Armageddon and biblical references that are more their interest. So I would encourage members of the Jewish community to put their faith in Democrats, because our support for Israel is generally for the right reasons.
Wasserman Schultz supported Israel in the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict and criticized MSNBC's coverage of the conflict. She said: "Clearly [MSNBC was] highlighting what Israel had done to Gaza and the plight of Palestinians. My first thought was, where is the balance? Where is the spotlight on what Jewish children in Israel go through from being victims of rocket attacks?"
Wasserman Schultz supported President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. She stated: "We must work toward a day where the entire world recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and that can be achieved through final status negotiations. I remain as committed as ever to safeguarding Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state, at peace with its neighbors, with Jerusalem as its undisputed capital."
Presidential signing statements.
Wasserman Schultz supports the use of appropriations for future control of presidential signing statements as developed as part of questions during the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the constitutional limits of executive power July 26, 2008.
Jewish American Heritage Month.
Wasserman Schultz is the first female Jewish congressperson from the state of Florida.
She and Senator Arlen Specter were the driving forces behind the resolution that declared every May Jewish American Heritage Month. The annual observance was created to recognize "the accomplishments of American Jews and the important role that members of the Jewish community have played in the development of American culture". The observance is modeled after Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month and Women's History Month. Wasserman Schultz envisioned "classroom instruction, public ceremonies and broadcast announcements", stating "There's a generation of children growing up with a fading memory of what happened during World War II or even an understanding of anyone who is Jewish or their culture and traditions. Through education comes tolerance." The bill introducing the observance passed unanimously in both the House and the Senate and signed by President George W. Bush. Wasserman Schultz said of the proclamation "This is an historic occasion. Generations to come will have the chance to live without anti-Semitism through greater understanding and awareness of the significant role that American Jews have played in U.S. history. Jewish American Heritage Month is a reality because of the people gathered today in this room."
The measure was criticized by Gary Cass, executive director of the now-defunct Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, a conservative Christian organization based in Fort Lauderdale, who objected to "teaching Jewish history without talk of religious practices and values", saying "We cannot seem to have an honest discussion about the Christian roots of America". He wondered "How much tolerance would [Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz] have for a Christian Heritage month?" She replied that the situation is different, that "Judaism is unique, because it is both a culture and a religion," and that she was not in favor of "teaching any religion in public schools." The congresswoman's father, Larry Wasserman, said that while his daughter had not been particularly active in the Jewish community before entering politics, she has "forged ties with Jewish groups as a lawmaker. She helped to form the National Jewish Democratic Council and served on the regional board of the American Jewish Congress."
2008 financial crisis.
Wasserman Schultz voted on September 29, 2008, supporting the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, and on October 3, 2008, supporting the revised version of that act.
Hate crimes.
During an April 2009 House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, fellow Floridian Tom Rooney, a former active duty U.S. Army JAG Corps officer, introduced an amendment that would make attacks against military veterans a hate crime. Wasserman Schultz remarked on the amendment:
Death of Daniel Wultz.
Wasserman Schultz became a vocal advocate for the family of Daniel Wultz, constituents of her congressional district who were engaged in legal action against the Bank of China. They alleged it had a role in financing the terrorist attack that killed the 16-year-old from Weston, Florida, in 2006.
In August 2013, Wasserman Schultz told the "Miami Herald": "In South Florida, we all know too well of the tragic circumstances surrounding the cowardly terrorist attack that took Daniel Wultz's innocent life. I have been working, hand in hand with the Wultz family and the state of Israel to ensure any and all of those involved in this terrorist activity, including the Bank of China, pay for their crimes so that justice can be served."
On May 1, 2014, together with then-House Majority Leader, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA), Wasserman Schultz hosted the Wultz family at the U.S. Capitol in a National Prayer Day event.
Identity theft.
On February 15, 2013, Wasserman Schultz introduced the Stopping Tax Offenders and Prosecuting Identity Theft Act of 2013 (H.R. 744; 113th Congress) into the House. The bill would increase the penalties on identity thieves in the United States and change the definition of identity theft to include businesses and organizations instead of just individuals.
Marijuana.
Wasserman Schultz opposed a 2014 medical marijuana amendment in Florida that narrowly failed to reach the 60% of votes in favor needed to amend the Constitution of Florida. She angered medical marijuana activists and major Democratic donors over this and her comparisons of medical marijuana dispensaries to "pill mills", which over-prescribe and over-dispense painkillers to patients with dubious symptoms. After Wasserman Schultz expressed interest in running for the United States Senate in the 2016 elections, medical marijuana activists vowed to thwart her ambitions. Attorney and donor John Morgan said that her position on medical marijuana "disqualifies her from the [Democratic Senate] nomination... Her position denies terminally ill and chronically ill people compassion."
In response, in February 2015, Wasserman Schultz's staff emailed Morgan, offering to change her position on medical marijuana if Morgan would stop criticizing her. Morgan declined her offer and released the emails to "Politico", calling her a "bully". Wasserman Schultz at first declined to comment, then denied that her office had even sent the emails. Morgan responded: "What Debbie leaves out in her pushback was the crystal clear message that her potential support of the new amendment [that has been proposed for the ballot in 2016] was predicated upon me withdrawing my comments to "Politico". I don't know how to view that as anything but an offer of a quid pro quo."
Gun control.
In 2018, Wasserman Schultz co-sponsored a bill to "strengthen school safety and security", which required a two-thirds vote for passage, given it was brought up under an expedited process. The House voted 407–10 to approve the bill, which would "provide $50 million a year for a new federal grant program to train students, teachers and law enforcement on how to spot and report signs of gun violence". Named STOP (Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing) School Violence Act, it would "develop anonymous telephone and online systems where people could report threats of violence." At the same time, it would authorize $25 million for schools to improve and harden their security, such as installing new locks, lights, metal detectors and panic buttons." A separate spending bill would be required to provide money for the grant program.
Political campaigns.
2004.
In 2004, Wasserman Schultz's mentor Peter Deutsch resigned his Congressional seat to make an unsuccessful run for the Senate seat of fellow Democrat Bob Graham. Wasserman Schultz was unopposed in the Democratic primary election held to fill Deutsch's seat. Her Republican opponent was Margaret Hostetter, a realtor who had never held public office. The 20th is so heavily Democratic that Hostetter faced nearly impossible odds in November. However, she gained notoriety for her attacks on Wasserman Schultz. For example, Hostetter's campaign site criticized Wasserman Schultz for protesting an American flag photograph with a Christian cross on it that was on display in the workstation of a secretary in a government building. Hostetter wrote, "Elect Margaret Hostetter to Congress November 2 and send the clear message that Americans respect and support... the foundational role Christianity has had in the formation of our great nation. Our rights come from God, not the state."
Wasserman Schultz won, taking 70.2% to Hostetter's 29.8%. When Wasserman Schultz was sworn in on January 4, 2005, she chose to use the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh. Because Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert only had a Christian Bible, a copy of the Tanakh was borrowed by Hastert's staff from Congressman Gary Ackerman for this purpose. (This was brought up two years later during the Qur'an oath controversy of the 110th United States Congress.)
2006.
Wasserman Schultz was unopposed for reelection in 2006.
2008.
In 2008 Wasserman Schultz won her reelection bid by defeating Independent Margaret Hostetter and Socialist write-in candidate Marc Luzietti.
She supported Hillary Clinton for her party's 2008 presidential nomination, and in June 2007 was named one of Clinton's national campaign co-chairs. Once Senator Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee, she endorsed him and joined Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado and Representative Artur Davis of Alabama to second his nomination at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
On CBS's Face the Nation, she declared Sarah Palin to be unready for the Vice Presidency. "She knows nothing...Quite honestly, the interview I saw and that Americans saw on Thursday and Friday was similar to when I didn't read a book in high school and had to read the CliffsNotes and phone in my report", Wasserman Schultz said of Palin's interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson last week. "She's Cliff-noted her performance so far." Wasserman Schultz was also named a co-chair of the Democratic Party's Red to Blue congressional campaign group. Controversy arose in March 2008 when she felt unable to campaign against South Florida Republican representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Díaz-Balart, and the now-retired Lincoln Díaz-Balart, because of her good friendship with them. Wasserman Schultz and Ros-Lehtinen (R–FL) are both on the LGBT Equality Caucus of which Wasserman Schultz was a Vice Chair. Ros-Lehtinen has been the sole Republican on the 112-member caucus since 2013.
2010.
Wasserman Schultz was challenged by Republican nominee Karen Harrington and Independents Stanley Blumenthal and Bob Kunst. Florida Whig Party candidate Clayton Schock ran as a write-in. Wasserman Schultz won over Harrington, 60.1% to 38.1%.
2012.
After the 2010 census, Wasserman Schultz' district was renumbered as the 23rd district and pushed further into Miami-Dade County, taking in most of Miami Beach and a portion of Miami itself. She again faced Republican businesswoman Karen Harrington. Wasserman Schultz won with 63.2% percent of the vote, to 35.6% for Harrington. When she was sworn in for her fourth term, she became the first white Democrat to represent a significant portion of Miami since 1993.
2014.
In the general election, Wasserman Schultz defeated Republican Joe Kaufman, 62.7% to 37.3%.
2016.
After a court-ordered redistricting in 2015, Wasserman Schultz lost much of her share of Miami-Dade County, including her portions of Miami and Miami Beach.
Economist and law professor Tim Canova challenged Wasserman Schultz in the August 30, 2016, Florida Democratic Party's primary election. He was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, 2016 Democratic primary candidate for president. Wasserman Schultz won the primary election with 57 percent of the vote.
On August 8, 2016, in the wake of the WikiLeaks Democratic National Committee email disclosures, Canova filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) violations of regulations complaint against Wasserman Schultz, alleging "interference" with his campaign, contending that on her behalf "...the DNC paid a team of national, senior communications and political professionals significant sums of money for their consulting services and the Wasserman Schultz for Congress Campaign utilized these services free of charge." A spokesman for Wasserman Schultz said that the complaint was without merit and that it was "based on stolen, cherry-picked information".
In the general election, Wasserman Schultz defeated Republican candidate Joe Kaufman with 56.7% to 40.5% of the vote.
2018.
Wasserman Schultz ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and was challenged by Republican candidate Joe Kaufman and Independent candidates Tim Canova and Don Endriss. Wasserman Schultz won with 58.48% of the vote to 35.99% for Kaufman, 4.95% for Canova, and 0.58% for Endriss.
2020.
Wasserman Schultz was challenged by Florida attorney Jen Perelman in the August 2020 Democratic primary.
On August 16, 2020, Martina Velasquez, a sixteen-year-old volunteer for Perelman's campaign, filed a police report alleging that Wasserman Schultz has shoved her, more than once, when both were talking to voters. Velasquez declined to press charges against Wasserman Schultz, but asked for a public apology.
In the Democratic primary on August 18, 2020, Perelman won 28% of the vote versus 72% for Wasserman Schultz.
Chair of the Democratic National Committee.
On April 5, 2011, President Barack Obama chose Wasserman Schultz to succeed Tim Kaine as the 52nd Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Until she assumed office, current DNC Vice-Chair Donna Brazile served as the interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Wasserman Schultz was confirmed at the meeting of the DNC held on May 4, 2011, in Washington, D.C.
During an appearance on "Face the Nation", Wasserman Schultz said, "The Republicans have a plan to end Medicare as we know it. What they would do is they would take the people who are younger than 55 years old today and tell them, 'You know what? You're on your own. Go and find private health insurance in the health-care insurance market.. Four non-partisan fact-checkers called her claim false. She then came under criticism for her comments on "Washington Watch with Roland Martin", in which she said, "You have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally—and very transparently—block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates than Republican candidates". The next day, she stated that "Jim Crow was the wrong analogy to use".
In 2012, many of Obama's advisers questioned the move to select Wasserman Schultz as his DNC chairwoman, who they felt came across as too partisan on television. An internal focus study of the popularity of top Obama campaign surrogates ranked Wasserman Schultz at the bottom. In February 2015, "Politico", citing unnamed sources, reported that Wasserman Schultz had lined up supporters in 2013 to portray any decision by Barack Obama to replace her as DNC chair as "anti-woman and anti-Semitic".
In 2011, she missed 62 votes of Congress, placing her 45th of 535 in missing Congressional votes.
2016 presidential election.
Clinton's opponents, Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders, both criticized the decision by Wasserman Schultz to schedule only six debates in the 2016 presidential primary, fewer than in previous election cycles, as well as the timing of the debates.
Ultimately, there were nine debates that both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders participated in during the primaries, as well as a number of town halls.
Some of Wasserman Schultz's actions that the news covered during the primaries were: having reduced the debate schedule, uninviting former DNC Vice Chair Tulsi Gabbard to the first primary Democratic debate, halting the Sanders' campaign's access to DNC databases after a staffer from their campaign attempted to exploit a security breach, defending the superdelegate system used in the Democratic primaries, rescinding a prior ban on corporate donations, and accusing Sanders supporters of violence at the Nevada Convention.
Resignation.
After WikiLeaks published Democratic National Committee emails which suggested that DNC staffers had expressed support for Hillary Clinton in the primary campaigns while criticizing the Bernie Sanders campaign, Wasserman Schultz tendered her resignation as the head of the DNC, to become effective as of the close of the nominating convention in Philadelphia. According to reports in "The Washington Post", Wasserman Schultz strongly resisted suggestions she resign, requiring a phone call from President Barack Obama to finally force her resignation.
Following a speech at the convention before the Florida delegation during which Wasserman Schultz was "booed off stage", the DNC decided that she would not open the convention.
2017 House IT staff accused.
In February 2017 "Politico" and "Buzzfeed" reported Capitol Police accused five IT staffers (who worked for more than 30 House Democrats including Wasserman Schultz) of trying to steal House computer equipment and violating House security policies.
As of February 6, 2017, "Politico" noted that Wasserman Schultz was one of several house members who did not terminate the suspected staffers after the criminal complaints. In July, 2017, one of the accused staffers, Imran Awan, was arrested for making a false statement on a bank loan application. After his arrest, Wasserman Schultz's office fired Awan. Wasserman Schultz later defended her decision not to fire Awan earlier, saying, "I believe that I did the right thing, and I would do it again."
In 2018, "The Washington Post" reported:
Federal prosecutors concluded an 18-month investigation into a former congressional technology staffer on Tuesday by publicly debunking allegations — promoted by conservative media and President Trump — suggesting he was a Pakistani operative who stole government secrets with cover from House Democrats. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Imran Awan pleaded guilty to a relatively minor offense unrelated to his work on Capitol Hill: making a false statement on a bank loan application. U.S. prosecutors said they would not recommend jail time.
According to "The New York Times":In the plea agreement, federal prosecutors debunked conspiracy theories about the case that had circulated online. They said that the government had interviewed about 40 witnesses, examined the House Democratic Caucus server and other data and devices, reviewed electronic communications and interviewed Mr. Awan on numerous occasions. They found no evidence that Mr. Awan had engaged in illegal conduct involving House computer systems.
October 2018 mail bomb attempt.
On October 24, 2018, a pipe bomb device sent to former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, which had the wrong address, was instead delivered to the Florida office of U.S. Representative Wasserman Schultz, whose name and address was on the return labels of all of the packages. During this time,
similar pipe bomb devices had been sent to various influential Democratic politicians. The packages containing the devices, as well as envelopes containing mysterious white powder, also labeled Schultz's office Sunrise, Florida, as the sender. However, the person who sent these devices and envelopes also misspelled her name as "Shultz." The same day, a similar device was found at Schultz's office in Aventura, Florida, as well. Fingerprint DNA helped identify the suspect as Florida resident and right-wing conspiracist Cesar Sayoc, who, after tracking his cell phone, was arrested in a parking lot in Plantation, Florida, on October 26, 2018.


Alba Alonso de Quesada

Alba Alonso de Quesada (17 August 1924 – 18 November 2020) was a Honduran lawyer and academic who played a pivotal role in the development of women's rights and anti-corruption policies in her country. She was the first woman to become a lawyer in Honduras and the first woman to serve as Secretary of the Ministry of Labor. Throughout her career, she worked for legal reforms to help children, families, women and the working classes, pressing for educational reform and providing pro bono legal aid. She was one of the driving forces who established the Transition Commission to evaluate corruption in educational institutions and led the Transparency and Ethics Commission in the development of transparency policies for the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). Twelve years after the conclusion of their reforms, in 2017 Alonso was recognized with an honorary doctorate from UNAH and the academic year of 2017 was dedicated to her by the Ministry of Culture.
Early life.
Alba Alonso Cleaves was born in 1924 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras to Cecilia de Jesús Cleaves and Agustín Alonzo. After completing her primary schooling at the "Escuela República del Paraguay" in Tegucigalpa, she attended the Normal School for Young Women, also in the capital, graduating with a license to teach. With a group of friends, who sought professional careers in law, medicine and pharmacy, she entered the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). In 1946, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in Legal Sciences from the law faculty of the UNAH, but was not allowed to practice, as at the time, women were not considered citizens in Honduras and the profession was only open to men. The inability to be able to practice as an attorney, led her to the women's movement and the press for legal reform to protect the rights of women and families.
Joining the "Federación de las Asociaciones Femeninas de Honduras" (FAFH) (Federation of the Feminine Associations of Honduras), upon its founding in 1951, Alonso traveled the country with prominent women such as Alejandrina Bermúdez de Villeda and Regina Mendoza de Martin to educate women on their civic duties and rights. They established branches of FAFH in all the departments of the country and began a petition drive to grant rights to women, which was submitted to the legislature in 1952. Though it failed, two years later, the group submitted a second petition which passed. In 1955, women who were able to read were granted the right to vote and citizenship, FAFH members established in the capital the local branch of the Inter-American Commission of Women (). Victoria Buchard was appointed as the Honduran delegate to the international body and Alonso was selected as the local group's secretary. CIM, in coordination with FAFH established the School of Social Services in 1957 and the following year pressed for creation of the National Board of Social Welfare. Both organizations were designed to allow women to participate in the political processes of social services offered to the nation.
Career.
As soon as women were granted agency, Alonso immediately returned to school to become a trial lawyer ("abogado") and contract law specialist ("notario"), gaining the right to practice law in 1958. She married Arturo Quesada Galindo, an engineer, who would become rector of UNAH from 1963 to 1969. The couple would have three children: Rosa María, Roberto Arturo, and María Guadalupe. Alonso began her career working with marginalized women in the urban neighborhoods of Tegucigalpa, practicing family law. Often giving free legal aid, she pressed for legislation to protect the rights of children, families and women. In 1962, after the first military coup d'état, she was appointed as Secretary of the Ministry of Labor by President Ramón Villeda Morales, the first time a woman had held the post. When Villeda was ousted by a second coup, she was appointed in 1964 as the Secretary of the Office of Culture, Tourism and Information by President Oswaldo López Arellano.
In 1972, Alonso was serving as the Chief of the Educational Reform Commission in Honduras and pressed for national reforms to ensure access to education for women. She published "Towards a Cultural Policy for Honduras" in 1977, evaluating cultural and legal developments in the country from pre-colonial times to the 1970s and helped to draft legislation to protect cultural heritage. Among the public positions she held through her career were prosecutor in the Criminal Court, undersecretary of Education, director of the Department of Educational Planning for the Ministry of Education, and legal advisor to the Ministry of Culture, among others. She was instrumental in drafting numerous laws, including revisions to the Family Code, the law to address HIV/AIDs, the "Law for the Alternative Development of Non-Formal Education", and the "Law for the Institute for Children and the Family".
In 1994, Alonso led the efforts to eliminate gender biases in legal terminology and in 1998, helped establish the National Institute for Women, an office which regulates and promotes the human rights of women. In 2000, Alonso was one of the drafters of the Equality and Opportunities Law, which was presented to the legislature by Norma Marina García and Soad Salomón de Facusse and after passage formalized the legal basis for women and men's equality, and created target quotas for women at all political levels of governance. She also served as director of the legal services office of FAFH for many years.
As a member of the Transition Board of UNAH, Alonso worked with the team of lawyers to bring transparency to the management of the university, and was instrumental in pushing the legislature to pass the Organic Law of the University in 2004. Working with Norma Cecilia Martín de Reyes, Alonso led the Transparency and Ethics Commission, which uncovered corruption at the university, identifying over 100 bank accounts in use at the time, as well as secret policies to protect those in power. Between 2005 and 2008, the Transitional Commission evaluated staff and administration, academic standards, and governance regulations, drafting new rules for the university structure at every level. They drafted university policyto protect the autonomy and secularism of the university, as well as the right to public and higher education for all Hondurans. Meeting with the library staff, Alonso was also one of the authors of the Rules and Regulations for Information Resources.
In 2017, UNAH declared that the academic year was dedicated in her honor, recognition bestowed since 2008 by the Ministry of Culture to highlight significant figures in Honduras' development. Simultaneously, Alonso was bestowed an honorary degree by UNAH in recognition of her contributions to women's and children's rights, education and the legal profession in the country. In speaking at the presentation ceremony, Alonso reiterated her commitment, at 94 to the global fight to eliminate barriers which cause women to be subordinate and stressed that women needed to continue to fight for their freedom and control of their own bodies and agency.
Death.
De Quesada died in November 2020 at the age of 96.


Annette Strauss

Annette Louise Greenfield Strauss (January 26, 1924 – December 14, 1998) was an American philanthropist and politician who served as the 55th mayor of Dallas. The Annette Strauss Artist Square in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas is named in honor of her. She was the second female mayor and the second Jewish mayor of Dallas (Adlene Harrison was first; Laura Miller was the third). She was also the first woman elected to the post in her own right; Harrison served as a caretaker for the last months of Wes Wise's term after Wise resigned to run for Congress.
Born in Houston, Texas, Annette Strauss graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1944. She moved to New York City where she received master's degrees in sociology and psychology from Columbia University. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor society and Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority. She worked as a Red Cross social worker in Houston for a year until she married Ted Strauss, Sr. Managing Director of Bear Stearns, in 1946 and moved to Dallas in 1947.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Strauss worked tirelessly as a fundraiser for various charities and organizations and also as a volunteer for a number of other organizations. She worked on behalf of the Dallas Symphony, the Crystal Charity Ball, Southern Methodist University, the United Way of America, the United Jewish Appeal, the Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Baylor University Medical Center and many other groups. Her efforts helped to raise millions for the arts in Dallas. Strauss was also one of the founding members of the Volunteer Center of North Texas.
Using her many connections in the city, Strauss was elected to a Dallas City Council seat in 1983. She became deputy mayor pro tem and then mayor pro tem in 1984. In 1987, Strauss ran for mayor of Dallas and won with 56 percent of the vote. Her opponents included the Texas Republican state chairman, Fred Meyer, a Dallas businessman originally from suburban Chicago.
During her tenure as mayor, Strauss helped to lead a city suffering from a sharp economic downturn.
While Mayor-Pro Tem, Annette spearheaded the effort to build a refuge for an increasing number of families living on the streets, victims of the collapsed Texas economy. The vision was a facility where homeless families could stay together as a family unit. A coalition of congregations responded, and Family Gateway was born. Originally named the Downtown Family Shelter, the S. St. Paul, 30-room facility was rededicated as the Annette. G. Strauss Family Gateway Center in 2000. The Center provides a private room, food and clothing for homeless families with children; coupled with the child care, educational and employment resources they need to recover from crisis and make positive choices for their future. Today, Family Gateway has grown to include transitional housing and permanent supportive housing units in the community to serve the growing number of homeless families. After 25 years Annette's original vision for Family Gateway continues today; to empower homeless families to break the cycle of homelessness and embrace a life of hope and promise.
In 1991, Strauss left the mayoral position and worked as a consultant and trustee for a number of boards and foundations, including the Children's Medical Center Foundation, the Dallas Methodist Hospitals Foundation, the St. Paul Hospital Foundation, the Timberlawn Foundation and the Texas Historical Foundation. She was also appointed "Ambassador-at-large" for the city of Dallas, an honorary position she held until her death from cancer in 1998. She was interred at Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery. Her husband Ted Strauss died on Sept. 5, 2014.
In recognition of her many years of humanitarian service, many things have been named for Annette Strauss, including the Annette G. Strauss Family Gateway Center, the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas at Austin and also the Annette Strauss Artist Square, an open-air Performing Arts area in downtown Dallas.


Mary Macarthur

Mary Reid Anderson (née Macarthur; 13 August 1880 – 1 January 1921) was a Scottish suffragist (although at odds with the national groups who were willing to let a minority of women gain the franchise) and was a leading trades unionist. She was the general secretary of the Women's Trade Union League and was involved in the formation of the National Federation of Women Workers and National Anti-Sweating League. In 1910, Macarthur led the women chain makers of Cradley Heath to victory in their fight for a minimum wage and led a strike to force employers to implement the rise. About 1901, Macarthur became a trade unionist after hearing a speech made by John Turner about how badly some workers were being treated by their employers. Mary became secretary of the Ayr branch of the Shop Assistants' Union, and her interest in this union led to her work for the improvement of women's labour conditions. In 1902 Mary became friends with Margaret Bondfield who encouraged her to attend the union's national conference where Macarthur became the first woman to be elected to the union's national executive.
Family life.
Macarthur was born on 13 August 1880 in Glasgow, the eldest of six children to John Duncan Macarthur, the owner of a drapery business, and his wife, Anne Elizabeth Martin. She attended Glasgow Girls' High School, and, after editing the school magazine, decided she wanted to become a full-time writer. After her Glasgow schooling she spent time studying in Germany before returning to Scotland to work for her father as a bookkeeper.
After becoming politically active, Mary met and eventually married William Crawford Anderson, the chairman of the executive committee of the Independent Labour Party, in 1911, ten years after he first proposed. Their first child died at birth in 1913, and daughter Anne Elizabeth was born in 1915.
William died four years later in the 1919 influenza epidemic.
Mary died of cancer on 1 January 1921, at the age of 40, in Golders Green, London.
Trade union activism and support for universal suffrage.
In 1903 Macarthur moved to London where she became Secretary of the Women's Trade Union League. Active in the fight for the vote, she was totally opposed to those in the NUWSS and the WSPU who were willing to accept the franchise being given to only certain groups of women. Macarthur believed that a limited franchise would disadvantage the working class and feared that it might act against the granting of full adult suffrage, and this view did not make her welcome in the more high profile suffrage movements. Macarthur's view was criticised by the middle-class leaders of the Votes for Woman movement who thought that a partial enfranchisement was more likely to succeed and that would make it easier to achieve a full suffrage.
The Women's Trade Union League united women-only unions from different trades including a mixed-class membership. The conflicting aims of activists affiliated with different classes and organisations barred the league from affiliation to the Trades Union Congress.
To solve this conflict Macarthur founded the National Federation of Women Workers in 1906. The model for the Federation was a general labour union, "open to all women in unorganised trades or who were not admitted to their appropriate trade union." This federation pre-dated the National Union of General Workers (formed in 1921) and led by and for women.
In general Macarthur chose the universal suffrage position over gradualist approaches both within the Trade Union movement and the Women's Rights movement. "Mary Macarthur estimated that if women were enfranchised on the same terms as men, less than 5 per cent of working women would be eligible." (Tony Cliff quoting the Proceedings, National Women's Trade Union League, USA (1919), p. 29.)
Macarthur was involved in the Exhibition of Sweated Industries in 1905 and the formation of Britain's Anti-Sweating League in 1906. The following year she founded the "Women Worker", a monthly newspaper for women trade unionists. Then in 1908, after six weeks in hospital with diphtheria, she presented findings of her research (in poorer areas of the capital), with sweated homeworking women, to the House of Commons Select Committee on Home Working.
A form of minimum wage law, the Trade Board Act 1909 was eventually passed from the activism and the evidence Macarthur and others had gathered and the changes that she had lobbied for. In 1909 "The New York Times" published an article about Macarthur which bears witness to some of the divisions in the Women's movement at the time and across the Atlantic.In 1910 the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath won a battle to establish the right to a fair wage following a 10-week strike. This landmark victory changed the lives of thousands of workers who were earning little more than 'starvation wages'. Macarthur was the trade unionist who led the women chain makers in their fight for better pay. In reference to female earnings, Macarthur commented that "women are unorganised because they are badly paid, and poorly paid because they are unorganised.". The dispute ended on the 22 October 1910 when the last of the employers agreed to pay the minimum wage. The Cradley Heath Workers' Institute was funded using money left over from the strike fund of the 1910.
Because of the fame she had earned as an organiser at Cradley Heath Macarthur was immediately sent for in August, 1911, when the Bermondsey Uprising began. Early in 1911 Ada Salter had founded a Women's Labour League (WLL) branch in Bermondsey and was recruiting women in the local food and drink factories to Macarthur's NFWW. In August, one of the hottest on record, the appalling conditions in some of these factories became unbearable and 14,000 women suddenly walked out on strike from 22 factories. This was the Bermondsey Uprising. Though inspired by Salter it was Macarthur who organised the strikers, led the negotiations and secured a historic victory for low-paid women.
The highlight was a mass rally in Southwark Park where the blistering oratory of Macarthur was backed up by suffragists Sylvia Pankhurst, Charlotte Despard and George Lansbury. In 1911, Macarthur also married William Crawford Anderson, chairman of the executive committee of the Labour party, who was from 1914 to 1918 member for the Attercliffe division of Sheffield.
Cat and Mouse Act and war effort.
In August 1913, in response to the government Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913 whereby hunger striking suffragette prisoners would be released when too weak to be active and permitting their re-arrest as soon as they were active, Macarthur took part in a delegation to meet with the Home Secretary, Reginald McKenna and discuss the Cat and Mouse Act.
McKenna was unwilling to talk to them and when the women refused to leave the House of Commons, Macarthur and Margaret McMillan were physically ejected but Evelyn Sharp and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence were arrested and sent to Holloway Prison.
Macarthur was a 'firm believer in universal rather than purely women's suffrage, and she had been careful not to allow the fight for the vote to become confused with her campaigns for better pay and conditions. She was well aware that success depended to a great extent on the support of the male trade unionist and politicians. When, at the end of the war, women aged 30 and over were given the vote, and were allowed for the first time to stand for Parliament, Mary saw her next challenge'.
Although an opponent of the war, Macarthur nonetheless became secretary of the Ministry of Labour's central committee on women's employment.
The Stourbridge Parliamentary Election 1918.
After the Representation of the People Act 1918 had enfranchised women over the age of thirty and the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 allowed women to stand for Parliament, Macarthur stood as Labour Party candidate in the newly created county constituency Stourbridge, Worcestershire at the General Election on 14 December 1919. This was a large constituency which included Halesowen, Oldbury, Cradley and Warley Woods. It did not include the Cradley Heath area where she had led the chain makers' dispute.
The returning officer insisted that she was listed under her married name of Mrs W.C. Anderson. The defending Liberal MP was John Wilson a director of the Albright and Wilson chemicals firm in Oldbury, which was in the constituency. She was also opposed by Victor Fisher of the National Democratic and Labour Party, who had the support of the Coalition, secret funding from the Unionists, and ran a particularly abusive campaign. During the campaign she worked closely with John Davison the Labour candidate in neighbouring Smethwick to defeat Christabel Pankhurst who was running as the Coalition candidate with Unionist support. Macarthur was defeated, as were most anti-war candidates, including her husband, William Anderson, who was defending Sheffield, Attercliffe.
Macarthur continued her work with the Women's Trade Union League and played an important role in transforming it into the Women's section of the Trade Union Congress.
Mary Macarthur died on 1 January 1921.
Legacy.
An exhibition commemorating Macarthur is displayed in the Cradley Heath Workers' Institute, which has been rebuilt at the Black Country Living Museum.
The Mary Macarthur Scholarship Fund and Mary Macarthur Educational Trust were established in 1922 and 1968 respectively, with the aims "to advance the educational opportunities of working women". Awards are made in memory of "pioneers of trade unionism", Mary Macarthur, Emma Paterson, Lady Dilke and Jessie Stephen. Their assets were transferred to the TUC Educational Trusts in 2010.
The Mary Macarthur Holiday Trust, based in Cardiff, helps fund holidays for vulnerable and needy women.
A statue was unveiled of Mary Macarthur in Mary Macarthur Gardens in Cradley Heath, West Midlands in 2012. She is also remembered in the name of Mary Macarthur Drive, Cradley Heath.
On the eve of International Women's Day 2017, a blue plaque was unveiled at her home at 42 Woodstock Road in Golders Green, where she lived while she was at her most prominent.
Her name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018.
There is social housing in London named after Mary Macarthur at Field Road, Hammersmith; Walter Street, Bethnal Green; and Wythenshawe Road, Dagenham.
In popular culture.
Mary Macarthur was featured in the Townsend Theatre Productions touring folk ballad Rouse Ye Women during April 2019. This included a performance at Cradley Heath Library. Bryony Purdue played the role of Macarthur supported by Neil Gore and Rowan Godel.
There is an annual festival organised by local trade unionists each July in Cradley Heath to commemorate the 1910 chain makers' strike.


Mary Foy (politician)

Mary Kelly Foy (born 27 February 1968) is a British Labour Party politician. She was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the City of Durham in the 2019 general election. She is also a councillor on Gateshead Council.
Early life and education.
Foy was born in Jarrow, Tyne and Wear and grew up on a council estate. She is the second of five children and her grandparents were Irish immigrants. Her father is a former shipyard worker who lost his job in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Foy has a degree in Social sciences, which she gained as a mature student.
Career.
Foy is a member of both UNISON and Unite the Union. She was a Community Development Worker for Durham City CVS from 2006 to 2013, and a parliamentary assistant to former Jarrow MP Stephen Hepburn. She was elected to represent Lamesley ward (named after the area of the same name on Gateshead Council in 2006, and has been a cabinet member for health and wellbeing since 2009. She is a local party chair for Blaydon and a regional representative of Labour's National Policy Forum. A socialist and on the left of the party, Foy's bid was backed by several unions. She is a member of Labour's Socialist Campaign Group.
On 15 October 2020, Foy resigned as PPS to Andy McDonald to vote against the proposed Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill, disagreeing with the Labour whip to abstain.
Personal life.
Foy has three children: Maria, Kieran and Siobhán. Maria had cerebral palsy and died in 2015.


Margaret Southern

Margaret E. Southern, (born Margaret Visser on 26 February 1931) is a Canadian businesswoman, noted as a co-founder of the Spruce Meadows equestrian park near Calgary.
Born in High River, Alberta, she graduated from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Physical Education degree in 1953. She joined the University of Calgary in her early career, becoming the first female physical education instructor on that campus. She served as Elizabeth II's Canadian Lady-in-Waiting during the Queen's 1990 royal tour of Canada. She was made a lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order for her service to the Canadian sovereign.
She was married to ATCO chair Ron Southern until his death in 2016. The Southerns opened Spruce Meadows in 1975, a facility that remains an international-grade equestrian sports facility today. Southern has also participated on various business, community and non-profit boards during her career.
In 1988, she was honoured with her home province's highest civilian award, the Alberta Order of Excellence, after becoming a member of the Order of Canada the previous year. Within the Order of Canada she was promoted to highest chief Officer level in October 1993 and Companion in December 2007 for having "demonstrated passionate leadership and commitment to sport as a professional and volunteer".


Joan Littlewood

Joan Maud Littlewood (6 October 1914 – 20 September 2002) was an English theatre director who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and is best known for her work in developing the Theatre Workshop. She has been called "The Mother of Modern Theatre". Her production of "Oh, What a Lovely War!" in 1963 was one of her more influential pieces.
Littlewood and her company lived and slept in the Theatre Royal while it was restored. Productions of "The Alchemist" and "Richard II", the latter starring Harry H. Corbett in the title role, established the reputation of the company.
She also conceived and developed the concept of the Fun Palace in collaboration with architect Cedric Price, an experimental model of a participatory social environment that, although never realized, has become an important influence in the architecture of the 20th and 21st centuries.
"Miss Littlewood", a musical written about Littlewood by Sam Kenyon, was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2018.
Early years.
Littlewood was born in Stockwell, London, and was educated at La Retraite Convent School in Clapham Park. She trained as an actress at RADA, but left after an unhappy start and moved to Manchester in 1934, where she met folksinger Jimmie Miller, who later became known as Ewan MacColl. After joining his troupe, Theatre of Action, Littlewood and Miller soon were married. After a brief move to London, they returned to Manchester and set up the Theatre Union in 1936.
Career.
In 1941, Littlewood was banned from broadcasting on the BBC. The ban was lifted two years later, when MI5 said she had broken off her association with the Communist Party. She was under surveillance by MI5 from 1939 until the 1950s.
In 1945, after the end of World War II, Littlewood, her husband the communist folk singer Ewan MacColl, and other Theatre Union members formed Theatre Workshop and registered it while staying at Ormesby Hall. The following eight years were spent touring. Shortly afterwards, when Gerry Raffles joined the troupe, MacColl and Littlewood divorced, though they still worked together for many years and Littlewood was godmother to MacColl's two children. Littlewood and Raffles were life partners until his death in 1975.
In 1953, after an attempt to establish a permanent base in Glasgow, Theatre Workshop took up residence at the Theatre Royal in Stratford, east London, where it gained an international reputation, performing plays across Europe and in the Soviet Union. One of Littlewood's most famous productions was the British première of Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children" (1955), which she directed and also starred in. Her production of "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be", a musical about the London underworld, became a hit and ran from 1959 to 1962, transferring to the West End.
The works for which she is now best remembered are probably Shelagh Delaney's "A Taste of Honey" (1958), which gained critical acclaim, and the satirical musical "Oh, What a Lovely War!" (1963), her stage adaptation of a work for radio by Charles Chilton. Both were made into films. She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Direction of a Musical for "Oh, What a Lovely War!", becoming the first woman nominated for the award. Theatre Workshop also championed the work of Irish playwright Brendan Behan.
Later life.
After Raffles's death in 1975, Littlewood left Theatre Workshop and stopped directing. After a time of drifting she settled in France and became the companion of Baron Philippe de Rothschild, the vintner and poet, and wrote his memoirs "Milady Vine". In the mid-1980s, she commenced work on her 1994 autobiography, "Joan's Book".
Littlewood died in 2002 of natural causes at the age of 87 in the London flat of Peter Rankin, 16 days before her 88th birthday.
Portrayals.
Littlewood was played by Zoë Wanamaker in the 2017 BBC Television drama "Babs", about the life of Barbara Windsor.