Lena Jeger, Baroness Jeger

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Lena May Jeger, Baroness Jeger (* 19th November 1915 in Yorkley , Gloucestershire , England ; † 26. February 2007 in Haywards Heath , West Sussex , England) was a British journalist and politician of the Labor Party . Since 1979 she was a Life Peeress member of the House of Lords .

Life

Lena Jeger was born as Lena May Chivers to Charles Chivers († 1971) and his wife Eugenie Alice James († 1969) in a small village in the historic forest area of Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire . Her father was a postman for the Royal Mail . She attended Southgate County School in North London. She studied English and French at Birkbeck College of the University of London , where she with a Bachelor graduated. She was Vice-President ( Vice-President ) of the National Union of Students . In 1936 she entered the public service ; she began her career at HM Customs & Excise , the UK Department of Taxation and Customs Affairs.

During the Second World War she worked from 1939 in the British Ministry of Information and in the Foreign Office . Jeger, who was fluent in Russian , was Deputy Editor of the British Ally newspaper , a British newspaper published in the Soviet Union , after World War II . She also worked for the British Embassy in Moscow during those six months .

In 1948 she married the general practitioner and family doctor Dr. Santo Jeger (1898–1953), since the British general election in 1945, Labor Party MP in the House of Commons for the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras South . Santo Jeger's medical office was in a shabby and neglected neighborhood in London's East End . In 1949 she resigned from the public service and then initially worked as a consultation assistant in her husband's practice. From 1951 to 1954 she worked as a journalist for the British newspaper The Manchester Guardian . There she demonstrated a journalistic flair for explosive and investigative topics.

Between 1959 and 1964 she worked as a journalist for The Guardian newspaper . Until 2003, she continued to occasionally write for the Guardian , mainly portraits of politicians and obituaries . Occasionally she wrote obituaries for other newspapers such as The Independent ; there u. a. the obituary for Alma Birk, Baroness Birk .

Political career

Jeger's political career began in local politics . She was a member ( Councilor ) of St. Pancras Borough Council (1945-1959) and London County Council (1952-1955). She had to give up her seat in the London County Council (LCC) after a hype about the decision of the LCC to hoist the red flag on the building on May Day .

After her husband's death in 1953, she was nominated as a Labor Party candidate for the required by-election in the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras South. She won the by-election in November 1953, which took place directly on her birthday, and was able to slightly improve the Labor Party's majority. On November 19, 1953, she officially took over the parliamentary seat of her late husband and became a member of the House of Commons . She won the constituency again in the British general election in 1955 , but lost her seat in the British general election in 1959 , to Geoffrey Johnson Smith , the candidate of the Conservative Party . In the British general election in 1964 , Jeger won her constituency back and was again MP for the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras South. In 1974, Jegers constituency was renamed Camden, Holborn and St Pancras South constituency ; Jeger then held this constituency until the British general election in 1979 . In 1979 she did not stand for re-election; despite the Conservative Party 's electoral victory, Frank Dobson was able to get Jeger's constituency for the Labor Party.

In 1971 she became a member of the Panel of Chairs of the Speaker of the House of Commons in the House of Commons; she held this office until she left parliament.

From 1967 to 1971 she represented Great Britain as a delegate in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and in the General Assembly of the Western European Union .

Jeger was a member of the National Executive Committee (board of directors) of the Labor Party from 1960 to 1961, later again from 1968 to 1980. She was Vice-Chair of the ( Vice-Chair ) of the National Executive Committee of the Labor Party (1978-1979).

She was party chairman ( Chairman ) of the Labor Party (1979-1980). In this function, she also chaired the politically and emotionally heated Labor Party Congress in Blackpool in September 1980 . a. the election mode of the party chairman was up for debate. Jeger led the controversial debate; when Labor MP Andrew Faulds made a personal attack on Tony Benn , she briefly turned off the microphones . At the end of the party congress, she gave up her position as party leader.

Membership in the House of Lords

On July 11, 1979, Jeger was made a Life Peeress and became a member of the House of Lords ; she was called Baroness Jeger , of St Pancras in Greater London .

She made her inaugural address on February 20, 1980 on Cyprus policy . In Hansard word posts Jegers are documented in the House of Lords from 1980 and of 2002. In November 2002 she spoke for the last time in the university finance debate on education .

In the House of Lords, she was the opposition spokesperson for health (Health, 1983–1986) and social security (Social Security 1983–1990). From 1990 Jeger was one of the backbenchers in the House of Lords. Her involvement in the House of Lords decreased, but she continued to appear at important votes. As of 2002, Jeger was granted a leave of absence by the House of Lords.

At the time of her death in February 2007, Jeger was the oldest living former female member of the House of Commons; since 2007 it is now Dame Peggy Fenner .

Political priorities

Jeger belonged to the left wing of the Labor Party. After announcing her withdrawal from the British House of Commons, she tried to balance the various party wings, particularly with James Callaghan and the right wing of the party.

Her political issues included homelessness , poverty , children's rights , prostitution and widow welfare . She spoke out against the increasing settlement of office buildings and the resulting decrease in housing in the districts of Inner London .

She campaigned for a liberal immigration policy and for equal pay for men and women. She played a crucial role in the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1970. Jeger had previously threatened that she would lead a backbencher uprising against the income and tax policies of the British government if the law were not majority would.

1953 visited Jeger, in whose constituency several thousand exiled Cypriots lived, at the invitation of Archbishop Makarios III. the Republic of Cyprus . Her speech at the Labor Party Congress in 1957 caused a sensation when she condemned British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's plans to involve Turkey in the Cyprus issue. Jeger accused Macmillan of intending to partition Cyprus and called for Cyprus to have the right to political and international self-determination . She visited Cyprus regularly, even in later years. In January 1997 she spoke again on the Cyprus conflict in the House of Lords. She reiterated her opinion that Greek and Turkish Cypriots would succeed in living together peacefully without outside interference. An excerpt from one of her speeches on the Cyprus conflict was later designed as lettering on a postage stamp in Greece . She was against the use of nuclear weapons and their possession by the British government and also a staunch opponent of the Vietnam War .

She was one of the main opponents of the political and economic concept of the Common European Market ; she called on Chancellor Helmut Schmidt , who was due to speak at the Labor Party's special party conference in 1975, during the ongoing campaign for a referendum in Great Britain on the introduction of the common market, to choose a different topic. Jeger spoke out against cigarette consumption and in favor of smoking bans . She rejected subsidies from the European Union for tobacco growing . She also spoke out against the legalization of so-called "soft drugs" such as cannabis .

A political friendship connected them with Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn ; With her she fought for legal equality and against discrimination against homosexuals . Jeger once said in a vote on homosexual rights to Castle that they both had made their contribution “for the boys” (“doing their bit for the boys”). Castle also wrote Jeger's obituary for The Guardian in March 2007 .

Private and death

Since her wedding to Dr. Santo Jeger the married and family name Jeger. Her marriage to Santo Jeger was childless. Jeger's health in recent years has been very poor. She has been treated for breast cancer several times at the Royal Marsden Hospital . She died at the age of 91 years at Ashton House Nursing House, a nursing home, in the Bolnore Road, Haywards Heath in the county of West Sussex from the consequences of their cancer and multiple organ failure .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Lena May Chivers, Baroness Jeger on thepeerage.com , accessed September 12, 2016.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Lady Jeger ; Obituary in: The Daily Telegraph, March 16, 2007
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Barbara Castle : Baroness Jeger ; Obituary in: The Guardian, March 3, 2007 7
  4. ↑ a b c Lena Jeger (Baroness Jeger) ; Curriculum vitae (official website of the Center for Advancement of Women in Politics); Retrieved November 25, 2013
  5. ↑ Veteran Labor peeress dies at 91 BBC News March 2, 2007; Retrieved November 25, 2013
  6. ↑ London Gazette Issue 47907 of July 17, 1979, p. 9009
  7. ↑ CYPRUS: POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SITUATION text of the speech on February 20, 1980
  8. ^ CYPRUS text of the speech of January 29, 1997
personal data
SURNAME Jeger, Lena, Baroness Jeger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chivers, Lena May (maiden name); Jeger, Lena (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British journalist and politician (Labor Party), Member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Yorkley , Gloucestershire, England, UK
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 2007
Place of death Haywards Heath , West Sussex , England, United Kingdom