Margot James

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Margot James (2017)

Margot James (born on 28. August 1957 in Coventry ) is a British politician of the Conservative Party and former entrepreneur. She was a Member of the House of Commons from 2010 to 2019 .

Career

James is the daughter of a Coventry entrepreneur. Her father Maurice had left school at the age of 14 and initially worked as a professional snooker player in the East End before entering the transport and security business in his hometown. Today the company is also active in the waste disposal, construction and real estate sectors. The difficulties that the father had with the trade unions during his expansionist efforts and that almost drove him into bankruptcy were to shape James as lastingly as the politics of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during this time. James' mother, Cathleen, had worked at British Thomson-Houston until she was married .

James attended school at the private Kingsley School in Leamington and Millfield , Somerset . She studied economics and administration at the London School of Economics (LSE), during which time she worked for the Member of the House of Commons Anthony Durant . After graduating, she worked in the party's press office for a year. Two years in France followed, where she tried unsuccessfully to gain a foothold in the wine trade . On her return to England she worked in her father's company, and here in the sales and marketing department. In 1986 she started her own company with a partner. She sold that company, Shire Health , a health care marketing and training firm, to WPP in 1999 for £ 4 million and then worked as an area representative for Ogilvy & Mather .

politics

Margot James (2013)

James became politically active during her studies as chair of the Conservative University Group at the LSE. In the 2005 general election, she ran unsuccessfully in the London constituency of Holborn and St Pancras . Between 2006 and 2008 she was a member of the Kensington and Chelsea City Council .

In order to increase the proportion of women among MPs, the then party chairman David Cameron put her on an “A-list” of up-and-coming politicians who could choose a constituency that the Conservatives considered promising. In the next election in 2010 , James competed in Stourbridge in her home region of West Midlands , where she succeeded in beating the previous electorate Lynda Waltho of the Labor Party with an election campaign that was considered to be aggressive . In the 2015 and 2017 elections , James was able to defend her constituency.

From 2010 to 2012, James was a member of parliament's committees on arms export control, as well as on business, innovation and training. From 2012 she was Parliamentary Private Secretary Assistant to Stephen Green , the State Secretary in the Department of Commerce and his successor Ian Livingston ; from 2014 she worked in the same function for William Hague , the then Leader of the House of Commons . James was Assistant to Whips from May 2015 to July 2016 before becoming Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Economic Affairs, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Since January 2018 she has been State Secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport, where she is responsible for the areas of digital and creative industries . With the assumption of office by the new Prime Minister Boris Johnson in July 2019, James resigned from this post and from the government.

James joined the Conservatives at the age of 17. In connection with the resignation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the end of 1990, she gave back her party membership card because she could not approve of the processes involved. At the beginning of 2003 she became a member again. From 2008 to 2010 she was the party's deputy chairwoman, where she was responsible for women's issues.

In her party, James was considered exceptional due to her glamorous appearance. She is classified as a modernizer and advocates ecological issues, the National Health Service and asylum seekers. James is one of the opponents of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union .

On September 4, 2019, she was expelled from the Conservative Party faction due to her parliamentary opposition to a Brexit without an EU exit agreement. This decision was reversed at the end of October. At the beginning of November, James announced in the general election of 2019 that he would not run for a seat in the House of Commons again.

Private

James is, after Angela Eagle of Labor, the second openly lesbian member of the House of Commons, and at the same time the first to run as such for her party. She has been in a relationship with fashion consultant, radio presenter and television producer Jay Hunt since the mid-2000s and lives in South Kensington and in Oldswinford, a district of Stourbridge.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Emine Saner: I can't be "outed". Evening Standard , March 4, 2004, accessed February 28, 2019.
  2. ↑ Anoosh Chakelian: Margot James on New Labor's "tragedy", rebellious schooldays, & being the first lesbian Tory MP. New Statesman , July 21, 2014, accessed February 28, 2019. (English)
  3. ^ A b c d e Margot the new face of Toryism. Coventry Telegraph, September 19, 2006, accessed February 28, 2019. (English)
  4. ^ Tory Margot James wins in Stourbridge Birmingham Mail, May 8, 2010, accessed on February 28, 2019.
  5. ^ A b Liz Hoggard: Cameron's girl. The Guardian , January 22, 2006, accessed February 28, 2019.
  6. ↑ Tom Goodenough: Which Tory MPs back Brexit, who doesn't and who is still on the fence? The Spectator , February 16, 2016, accessed February 26, 2019
  7. ↑ Mirror: Full list of 21 Tory rebels losing the whip in brutal no-deal Brexit purge
  8. ↑ FAZ.net: Government throws dissenters from the parliamentary group , September 4, 2019
  9. ↑ Tim Shipman: Tory rebel Margot James stands down as MP following clashes with local party . In: The Sunday Times . November 3, 2019, ISSN  0956-1382 ( thetimes.co.uk [accessed November 3, 2019]).
  10. ^ Margot James becomes the second out lesbian in parliament. PinkNews, May 7, 2010, accessed February 28, 2019. (English)
personal data
SURNAME James, Margot
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Coventry , England