Parliamentary Career
Hodge has been Member for Barking since a by-election on 9 June 1994 caused by the death of Jo Richardson. As a new MP, she co-nominated the candidature of Tony Blair, a former neighbour in Islington, to be the new leader of the Labour Party after the sudden death of John Smith.
She became a Junior Minister in 1998 and was appointed Minister for Universities in 2001, where she sponsored the controversial Higher Education Act 2004, and remained there until 2003 when she was named as Children's Minister. She was appointed to the Privy Council on 22 June 2003.
Hodge endorses Fair Spend, a new student discount initiative set up in 2010.
Read more about this topic: Margaret Hodge
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)