Freda Westwood

Freda Westwood (birth name Freda Barker ; * 1924 in Birmingham ; † December 2011 ) was a British politician with the Labor Party and one of the first women to organize the party in one of the nine regions of England .

Life

Freda Barker, the eldest daughter of a miner and a cleaning lady, and left school in 1938 to work in a curtain shop. In 1939 she became a worker at the Birmingham-based ammunition factory Kynoch and then in 1942 at the newly built Supermarine Spitfire production facility in Castle Bromwich , where she was employed until the end of World War II . She then worked from home making sleepyheads for a subcontractor for the Woolworths Group to raise family income. In 1948 she became a member of the Labor Party.

In the general election on 15 October 1964, the former Labor MP had the constituency of Smethwick , Patrick Gordon Walker , his position in the House ( House of Commons ) against the national trend to his conservative challenger Peter Griffiths lost. This was the best known for its offensive campaign style in which he as the campaign slogan "Want a nigger as a neighbor, Dial Labor" ( 'If you want a nigger for a neighbor vote, Labor') used.

Subsequently, the Labor Party's regional organizer for the West Midlands , Bob Chamberlain, looked for a tough manager for the Smethwick constituency , even though it was an unpaid job, and delegated the job to Freda Westwood, who first appeared in the March 31, 1966 general election led the campaign of new Labor candidate and former actor Andrew Faulds . This won against Griffiths, so that Griffiths had to retire from the House of Commons after only two years.

In 1969 she became deputy regional organizer and women's representative for the Labor Party for West Midlands, but led the successful election campaign of Faulds again in the general election of June 18, 1970. Today's Baron Oakeshott was one of her assistants at the time .

After the death of Bob Chamberlain in 1977, Freda Westwood was his successor and thus one of the first women of the Labor Party in the role of regional organizer. She held this office until her retirement in 1986. For her long service to the Labor Party, she was honored in 1999 by then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in the presence of the Speaker of the House of Commons Betty Boothroyd .

Web links

• Freda Westwood obituary . In: The Guardian, December 8, 2011