Ann Clwyd
Ann Clwyd Roberts (born
21 March 1937,
Denbigh) is the current Chair of the
Parliamentary Labour Party representing
backbench British Labour Members of Parliament. She has represented
Cynon Valley in
Wales since
1984. She has traditionally been regarded as on the left wing of the party, and has been a vocal supporter of the
Iraq War. She was formerly a teacher.
She worked as a journalist, working for the
BBC and then for newspapers. She was persuaded to stand for
Parliament by
Huw T Edwards, who felt that there should be more women in parliament. She was the unsuccessful Labour candidate in
Denbigh in
1970.
From
1979 to
1984, Ann Clwyd was
MEP for
Mid and West Wales. She was elected to Parliament in a
byelection following the death of
Ioan Evans and became the first woman to sit for a
Welsh valleys constituency. She served as
Shadow Minister of Education and Women's Rights from
1987 but was sacked in
1988 for rebelling against the party whip on a defence matter. She returned as Shadow
Minister for Overseas Development from
1989 to
1992 and then served as Shadow
Secretary of State for Wales in 1992 and for
National Heritage from 1992 to
1993.
She was the
Opposition Spokesperson for Employment from 1993 to
1994 and for Foreign Affairs from 1994 to
1995 when she was again sacked, along with
Jim Cousins, for taking a foreign trip without permission (in this case, visiting
Kurdish sites in northern
Iraq). In 1994 she also staged a sit-in down
Tower Colliery mine in her constituency to protest at its closure. She was a member of the International Development
Select Committee from
1997 to
2005. Having been prominent in her concern for the situation in Iraq before the
war there in
2003,
Tony Blair made her a Special Envoy on
Human Rights in Iraq in the run-up to the War. She was the first journalist to put forward
claims that Iraqis were killed in woodchippers. On
August 9,
2004, she became a member of the
Privy Council.
Clwyd was a Vice Chair of the
Parliamentary Labour Party from
2001 until
2005, and was elected as Chair by 167 to 156 (beating
Tony Lloyd) on
May 24,
2005.
Although a Labour Party member as an adult, Clwyd once stood (successfully) on behalf of
Plaid Cymru in an election in her school.
*
Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Ann Clwyd MP*
TheyWorkForYou.com - Ann Clwyd MP*
Number 10 press release on Ann Clwyd's appointment to the Privy Council
