Margaret Hodge

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Rt. Hon. Margaret Hodge, speaking at the launch of the Audit Commission Disabled Children report, House of Commons,17 September 2003

Margaret Eve, Lady Hodge, MBE (née Margaret Oppenheimer; born 8 September 1944) is a British politician and Labour Party Member of Parliament for Barking. She was the first Minister for Children appointed in a newly created post within the Department for Education and Skills in 2001. She presently holds a ministerial post at the Department of Trade and Industry.

1 Before Parliament
2 Parliamentary career
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Before Parliament

Margaret Hodge was born in Egypt as Margaret Oppenheimer, the daughter of a millionaire German Jewish steel trader and his Austrian Jewish wife.[1] [2] She was educated at the London School of Economics. During her 10 years as leader of Islington Council she earned the nickname of 'Enver Hodge', after the Albanian despot, Enver Hoxha ('Hoxha' is pronounced similarly to 'Hodge'.)

After divorcing her first husband, she married Sir Henry Hodge. He was a solicitor, but took up a judicial career, being appointed a recorder in 1993, then a circuit judge in 1999, and becoming only the third solicitor to sit as an High Court judge in England and Wales in August 2004.

She is a mother and grandmother.

[edit] Parliamentary career

Hodge has been member for Barking since a by-election on June 9, 1994 caused by the death of Jo Richardson, at which time she stood down as leader of Islington. She became a junior minister in 1998 and was made Minister for Universities in 2001, and remained there until 2003 when she was made Children's Minister.

[edit] Child abuse controversy

In 1982, Margaret Hodge became leader of Islington Council, a post which she held until 1992. In 1985 Demetrious Panton complained about abuse that he had suffered while in the council's care in the 70s and 80s. He did not receive an official reply until 1989, in which the council denied responsibility.^{[citation needed]}

In 1990 Liz Davies, a senior social worker employed by the borough and her manager David Cofie, raised concerns about sexual abuse of children in Islington Council Care. Correspondence between Hodge and the Director of Social Work indicates that she declined a request for extra resources to investigate. In early 1992 Liz Davies resigned from her post and requested that Scotland Yard investigate the allegations. The Evening Standard then began reporting on the allegations of abuse in Islingtons children's homes, shortly after which Hodge resigned to pursue a career with Price Waterhouse. In 1995, the White Report into sexual abuse in Islington Care homes reported that the council had failed to adequately investigate the allegations.

In 2003, following Hodge's appointment as Minister for Children, Demetrious Panton went public with his allegation that he was abused in Islington Council care and had repeatedly raised this issue with no effect. He holds Margaret Hodge ultimately responsible for the abuse that he suffered. Liz Davies also went public with the issues that she had raised concerns about while working for the council.

Following a media campaign conducted by several national newspapers calling for her to resign from her new post, she responded to Mr Panton by letter, in which she referred to him as 'extremely disturbed'. Mr Paton then passed the letter to the press which planned to publish it, only to be judicially restrained from doing so at the instruction of Mrs Hodge. The letter was eventually published, mainly on the grounds that the blocking of the letter was seen as disproportionate. Mrs Hodge was forced to publicly apologise and offered to contribute to a charity of the man's choosing as recompense. This effectively ended the affair in the eyes of the press, although the affair remains a blot on her political record.

[edit] First Children's Minister and after

Hodge was the first person to be Children's Minister when the post was created in 2003 but suffered difficulties after the Islington controversy; her resignation was called for on several occasions by the press and parliamentary opposition.

She has since been transferred to less visible posts. Usually viewed as a strong supporter of Tony Blair, she appears to retain his support despite the hostility of the press, the opposition and (it is rumoured) a number of her parliamentary colleagues.

Privacy International awarded Margaret Hodge the 2004 Big Brother Award for "Worst Public Servant" for her backing of controversial initiatives including the Universal Child Database. At a keynote speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research on 26 November 2004, Hodge strongly defended the idea of greater state regulation of individuals' choices, stating that "some may call it the nanny state but I call it a force for good".

In 2005 she was appointed Minister of State at the Department for Work & Pensions with responsibility for Work.

On June 17, 2005 she allegedly said that the former workers of MG Rover would be able to obtain jobs at Tesco, a local supermarket. Later, she claimed that she did not say this, rather that she had empathy for those losing their jobs, and pointed to a new Tesco supermarket as an example of new jobs being created in the face of the redundancies at the car manufacturing plant.

[edit] Hodge and the BNP

In April 2006 she commented in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph that eight out of ten white working class voters in her constituency may be tempted to vote for the British National Party (BNP) in the May 4 2006 local elections because "no one else is listening to them" about their concerns over unemployment, high house prices, and the housing of asylum seekers in the area. She said the Labour Party must promote "very, very strongly the benefits of the new, rich multi-racial society which is part of this part of London for me". [3]

She was strongly criticised for giving the BNP publicity in the local election campaign, which combined with heavy media coverage, and led to the BNP delivering a bouquet of roses to her office to thank her for her contribution to their cause: the election resulted in an almost clean sweep for the BNP in the seats where they stood, winning 12 of the 13 seats in Barking [4]. Whilst this was far short of the Labour party total, it was clear from their performance that the BNP could have won many more seats had they stood a full slate of candidates. Local Labour activists blamed Hodge, and it was reported that moves were underway to deselect her.[5]

Despite this faux-pas she was appointed to a post at the Department of Trade and Industry in the Cabinet reshuffle of May 2006.

[edit] Minister of State for Industry and the Regions

On 24 May 2006 the GMB Union wrote to Margaret Hodge asking her to resign "... because of Margaret Hodge giving so much publicity to the BNP which allowed them to win a large number of seats...".

October 2006 saw a flurry of negative coverage of Margaret Hodge's ministerial activities, especially regarding the Companies Bill. This led the Financial Times to write in a leading article that the DTI "should not have responsibility for business".

[edit] Remarks on Tony Blair's foreign policy

On 17 November 2006 it was reported in the Islington Tribune that she described the Iraq war as a 'big mistake in foreign affairs'. Allegedly she also said that she was worried as far back as 1998 about Tony Blair's 'moral imperialism'. She apparently made these remarks at a Fabian Society event dinner in North London.