Gloria De Piero (born 21 December 1972) is a British television and radio presenter, and former
Labour Party politician.
Prior to her political career, she was the political editor of
GMTV. A member of the
Labour Party, she was first elected as
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
(MP) for
Ashfield in
2010. She held positions in the Opposition frontbench under the leadership of both
Ed Miliband
Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliban ...
and
Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
. This included being the
Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
The Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (previously Shadow Minister for Women, Shadow Minister for Women and Equality, Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities) is a position in the United Kingdom's Official Opposition, and sits in ...
between October 2013 and September 2015, and the Shadow Justice Minister between July 2017 and July 2019. She announced her decision to step down from politics at the same time as she quit the Labour frontbench in July 2019.
In 2020, she co-presented
Talkradio
TalkRadio (previously styled as talkRADIO) is a talk radio station broadcasting nationally in the United Kingdom, which was relaunched on 21 March 2016. Based in London and owned by Wireless Group, a subsidiary of News Corp., it is the sist ...
's Sunday morning political programme alongside
Alexis Conran
Alexis Conran is a British actor, writer and presenter on TV and radio, who currently hosts the weekend afternoon show on Times Radio. He is perhaps best known for co-hosting the BBC Three show ''The Real Hustle'' from 2006 until 2012. He was ...
.
From July 2020 until May 2021 she presented her own programme on
Times Radio
Times Radio is a British digital radio station owned by News UK. It is jointly operated by Wireless Group (which News UK acquired in 2016), ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times''.
As of September 2022, the station broadcasts to a weekly audienc ...
on Friday mornings, and co-presented the Sunday morning political programme ''G&T'' alongside
Tom Newton Dunn
Thomas Zoltan Newton Dunn (born 16 December 1973), known as Tom Newton Dunn, is an English broadcast journalist and former newspaper journalist. he presents The News Desk, an evening news programme on talkTV.
He was the political editor of ...
. In 2021 she moved to
GB News
GB News is a British free-to-air television and radio news channel. The channel is available on Freeview, Freesat, Sky, YouView, Virgin Media and via the internet. Since 4 January 2022, an audio simulcast of the station is available on DAB+ ...
where she works as a presenter.
Early life
De Piero was born on 21 December 1972 in
Bradford,
West Riding of Yorkshire
The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...
, England to Giorgio and Maddalena De Piero.
Her parents are
Italian immigrants
, image = Map of the Italian Diaspora in the World.svg
, image_caption = Map of the Italian diaspora in the world
, population = worldwide
, popplace = Brazil, Argentina, United States, France, Colombia, Canada, P ...
who moved to the United Kingdom to work in Bradford's textile mills. Her father had a mental health crisis when she was around the age of nine. This resulted in him requiring admissions to psychiatric hospitals throughout her childhood. His mental health meant that he could not continue to work, and De Piero's mother gave up her job to look after him, and the family lived on
benefits.
She attended Yorkshire Martyrs Catholic College where she obtained five
GCSEs, and
Bradford College
Bradford College is a further and higher education college in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, with approximately 25,000 students. The college offers a range of full and part-time courses from introductory level through to postgraduate l ...
where she gained two D
A Levels.
[ During her youth, De Piero was a member of ]Socialist Organiser
{{unreferenced, date=October 2007
''Socialist Organiser'' was a weekly socialist newspaper circulated in the Labour Party. The newspaper was founded in 1979 by the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory, later renamed the Socialist Organiser ...
, and joined the Labour Party's student wing Labour Students
Labour Students is a student organisation within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. It is a network of affiliated college and university clubs, known as Labour Clubs, who campaign in their campuses and communities for Labour's values of e ...
at the age of 18. De Piero then studied sociology at the University of Central England
, mottoeng = "Do what you are doing; attend to your business"
, established = 1992—gained university status1971—City of Birmingham Polytechnic1843— Birmingham College of Art
, type = Public
, affiliation = ...
(now Birmingham City University
, mottoeng = "Do what you are doing; attend to your business"
, established = 1992—gained university status1971—City of Birmingham Polytechnic1843—Birmingham College of Art
, type = Public
, affiliation = ...
) and the University of Westminster
The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Polyte ...
, graduating with a first.[ She was involved in the Labour Students' campaign in 1996–1997 as one of its national officers based in London.] After the 1997 general election which resulted in the Labour Party winning in a landslide, De Piero applied for several government positions including as a special adviser, parliamentary researcher, and at left-wing think tanks but failed to gain employment.[
]
Media career
De Piero worked as a researcher for ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
's ''Jonathan Dimbleby
Jonathan Dimbleby (born 31 July 1944) is a British presenter of current affairs and political radio and television programmes, author and historian. He is the son of Richard Dimbleby and younger brother of television presenter David Dimbleby.
...
'' show.[ She then moved to the ]BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''. While working at the BBC, she completed a master's degree at
. From 2003 to 2010, she was the political editor for
.
station. She presents her own show on Friday mornings, and co-presents the Sunday morning political show ''G&T'' alongside the former political editor of ''
. In April 2021 she announced that she was joining the weekday afternoon programme of
, a new TV channel. In August it was announced that De Piero would host a new political programme on the channel: ''The Briefing: Lunchtime with Gloria De Piero''.
In February 2010, De Piero resigned as GMTV's political editor to seek selection as the Labour candidate for the
.
The candidacy became vacant following the announcement that the constituency's Labour MP, former
, would be stepping down at the election. On 21 March, she was selected as the party's candidate. De Piero was elected with a majority of 192 votes (reduced from 10,213 in 2005) after a 17.2% swing to the
. During her election campaign, it was reported that she had posed for topless photographs for a modelling agency at the age of 15. Three years later, an unnamed news agency attempted to buy the photographs on behalf of a national newspaper. It later emerged that ''
'' had purchased the photographs in 2010. De Piero issued a legal warning to the newspaper that she had been underage when the photographs were taken and the negatives were returned to her with an apology.