|
|
 |
| |
PM sings praises of ex-choir girl who took on Liberal Democrats
ISLINGTON South MP Emily Thornberry’s legal victory over Liberal Democrat leaflets reached the highest echelons of power this week when she was congratulated by the Tory leader David Cameron during the Queen’s Speech debate.
Describing politics in Islington as “a vicious dogfight between Labour and the Liberal Democrats”, Mr Cameron said Ms Thornberry had become so fed up with “the inaccurate leaflets, false claims and bitter attacks” that she had taken legal action, forced them to apologise and received a four-figure sum. He added: “For that result she would have the support of honourable members on both sides of the house.”
His comments come days after the MP won a published apology from Islington Lib Dems on the party’s website over false claims that she was the ninth worst attendee at House of Commons committee meetings and that she had voted against publication of MPs’ expenses.
Ms Thornberry, who was chosen to second the Queen’s Speech debate, became the subject of some light-hearted banter on Wednesday from both Mr Cameron and Gordon Brown, in line with parliamentary tradition.
Mr Cameron reminded the MP that she will need similar “steel” to defend her “wafer-thin majority”.
“She has always had a keen sense of timing,” said the Tory leader.
“She saw Tony Blair heading to Islington and she moved into the same street. Just as Tony Blair’s star was fading, she switched to the Prime Minister.”
Gordon Brown didn’t seem to mind as he paid tribute to Ms Thornberry’s outspoken nature from the age of 10 when she was in a girls’ choir.
He said: “There was a boys’ choir in a rival church in the same parish and Emily was outraged to learn that the boys got paid twice as much as the girls, so when the Equal Pay Act 1970 came in, a very young future Member of Parliament wrote to the rector of her church to demand that there be equal wages for girls and boys. Unfortunately, the complaint not only fell on the deaf ears of the rector, who did not bother to reply to her letter, but the next day he took the assembly at her school and his theme was ‘the sin of greed’. Redress follows in the Equality Bill that we are now bringing to the House of Commons.”
Ms Thornberry described her childhood growing up in a Guildford council estate before turning to the borough she now represents.
“Islington is home to people from all over the world and from all backgrounds. We are not just cappuccino bars and Georgian squares awash with the chattering classes and the birthplace of new Labour. We are more than that. At my recent surgery, people from 17 countries came along.” |
 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
