Information AboutMargaret Jay |
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Her father was former Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan , and she was educated at Blackheath High School and Somerville College , Oxford. In the 1980s, she was a journalist with the BBC , working on the prestigious '' Panorama '' programme. She entered politics in the 1990s and was an opposition Whip . In association with the shop workers' union, she led opposition to the liberalisation of Sunday trading hours and continued to campaign on HIV issues. She was made a Baroness in 1992 and was appointed a Life Peer and her first government appointment in 1997 was as a health spokesman in the House Of Lords in Tony Blair 's first administration. After her party's election victory was made a health spokesman and Minister for Women. From 1998, she was Leader Of The House Of Lords , playing a pivotal role in the major reform that led to the removal of most of its hereditary members. She retired from active politics in 2001 . Among numerous non-executive roles that she has taken on since retiring from politics, she is a non-executive director of BT Group {Link without Title} . Her personal life is as remarkable as her professional life. In 1969, she married fellow-journalist, Peter Jay , who was later appointed ambassador to the United States Of America by Dr. David Owen , Foreign Secretary in Callaghan's government. While in the USA, she met journalist Carl Bernstein , with whom she had a much-publicised relationship in 1979 -- with the result that she was unflatteringly depicted in a novel by Bernstein's wife, Nora Ephron , called ''Heartburn'', and subsequent Film . Her husband had an equally noted affair with their nanny. Peter and Margaret were divorced in 1986 after eighteen years of marriage and she lived for awhile with Professor Robert Neild , the Cambridge economist. In 1994, she married Professor Michael Adler who had been chair of the National Aids Trust when she was its director, during which period he was married to Karen Dunnell . REFERENCES biographical article, NZ Herald 2005 |
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