Dame Margaret reflects on her life in politics

In the latest edition of Marketing Derby’s Innovate magazine, we sit down with Derby South MP Dame Margaret Beckett who reflects on her illustrious political career, which included becoming the UK’s first-ever female Foreign Secretary.

At the next General Election, Dame Margaret will retire as the longest-serving female Member of Parliament in UK history.

And when she does, she will be able to reflect on a life in politics, which has seen her travel the world, sat at negotiating tables with international leaders and played a major role in delivering life-changing legislation.

She has done all this while representing her city in Parliament for 40 years.

Since being elected as an MP for Derby in 1983, Dame Margaret has served as Secretary of State in the Foreign Office and the Departments for Environment and Trade and Industry, become the first woman to lead the Labour Party and gained admirers across all sides of the House for her wisdom, honesty and integrity.

In her interview with Innovate, she explains how she first got interested in politics, how she started to become more involved in the Labour Party – and her time as MP for Lincoln during the 1970s – an era when there were very few women in politics.

She talks about the heady days when Labour came to power in the 1990s – and the piece of legislation of which she is proudest – the National Minimum Wage.

She also recalls the moment when Prime Minister Tony Blair asked her to become Foreign Secretary.

Dame Margaret told Innovate: “I was astounded and not terribly thrilled, actually, because I thought being at the Foreign Office might be all sorts of things that I wouldn’t enjoy doing but, as it happened, I was thrown straight into international negotiations because we were trying to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran.

“I was appointed on the Friday and on the Monday I was in Washington with Condoleezza Rice and Sergei Lavrov.”

Asked what she will miss the most when she retires,  Dame Margaret says it will be “the people” – particularly the ones who elected her.

She told Innovate: “Derby is a city with its arms wide open. The people are wonderful.”

And she also shares some words of advice to those who may be considering going into politics.

She said: “Unless you are born to wealth and power, if you want to change things, politics is really the only way you can do it.”

To read the full interview with Mrs Beckett visit here.