Labour Days
She joined the Labour Party and contested the European Parliament elections in 2004 in the North West region. She became the party's candidate from an all female short list in the West Lancashire constituency at the 2005 general election following the retirement of the sitting MP Colin Pickthall. Cooper was elected to the House of Commons at her fifth attempt with a majority of 6,084, and remains the MP there. She made her maiden speech on 24 May 2005.
Since her election she has been a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and was part of the successful campaign that stopped the merger of the Southport and Ormskirk hospitals. In June 2006 she became PPS (Rt Hon Lord Rooker, Minister of State), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
On 9 August 2006, the Daily Telegraph reported that Cooper had written to No 10 saying that some of her constituents were 'appalled' by the idea that such a divisive figure as Lady Thatcher - who was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990 - could be given a state funeral.
Read more about this topic: Rosie Cooper
Famous quotes containing the words labour and/or days:
“We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the men.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 2:13.