Jane Patricia Griffiths (born 17 April 1954) is a British linguist and politician. She was elected as the Labour

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 the Reading East parliamentary constituency at the 1997 general election. In 2004, Griffiths was deselected as the Labour candidate for Reading East by her local party. Consequently, she did not stand for re-election.

Early life

Attending Cedars Grammar School in Leighton Buzzard, Griffiths later studied at the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...

, gaining a degree in Russian. From 1977 to 1985, she was a linguist at

Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...

(GCHQ), and from 1984 to 1997 the Asia editor for

BBC Monitoring BBC Monitoring (BBCM) is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation which monitors, and reports on, mass media worldwide using open-source intelligence. Based at New Broadcasting House, the BBC's headquarters in central London, it has ...

. At one stage, she was also an English teacher.

Politics

Griffiths' political career began in 1989 when she was elected to

Reading Borough Council Reading Borough Council is the local authority for the Borough of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. Berkshire is purely a ceremonia ...

. She sat on the council, as a Labour member, until 1999. Prior to the 1997 general election, Griffiths was selected as the Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) for the Reading East constituency. This had been a safe

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

seat since its creation in 1983. The retiring Tory incumbent Gerard Vaughan had a majority of 14,555. Despite this, Griffiths emerged as one of the surprise winners of the general election. In Parliament, she established a reputation as a fervent

pro-European Pro-Europeanism, sometimes called European Unionism, is a political position that favours European integration and membership of the European Union (EU).Krisztina Arató, Petr Kaniok (editors). ''Euroscepticism and European Integration''. Politi ...

Andrew Roth Andrew Roth (23 April 1919 – 12 August 2010) was a biographer and journalist known for his compilation of ''Parliamentary Profiles'', a directory of biographies of British Members of Parliament, a small sample of which is available online in ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' described her as a "pro-EU partisan loyalist with an international outlook". As a backbench Labour MP, she was largely supportive of the

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

administration. Griffiths acquired a reputation for being somewhat confrontational, voicing disagreement with

Speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** I ...

Betty Boothroyd Betty Boothroyd, Baroness Boothroyd (born 8 October 1929) is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for West Bromwich and West Bromwich West from 1973 to 2000. From 1992 to 2000, she served as Speaker of the House of ...

. Notably, she also called for legalized brothels. At the 2001 general election, Griffiths increased her majority from 3,795 to 5,588. However, her disputes with her local party became much more public thereafter. In early 2002, she wrote in ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...

'' about rampant sexism within the

Parliamentary Labour Party In UK politics, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) is the parliamentary group of the Labour Party in Parliament, i.e. Labour MPs as a collective body. Commentators on the British Constitution sometimes draw a distinction between the Labour ...

. Subsequently, she alleged she was experiencing bullying by local Labour Party activists in Reading. This was denied by the local Party Chair. The ensuing tensions culminated in Griffiths' deselection as the candidate for the 2005 general election, a first for any MP in ten years. 'Personality issues' were cited, whilst Griffiths contended she was the victim of a conspiracy by '1970s men': her assertion was criticized as 'wild conspiracy theories' in an open letter by seventeen female members of the party. She vowed not to stand as an independent, and the seat fell to a very narrow Labour defeat, with Griffiths being succeeded by Conservative

Rob Wilson Robert Owen Biggs Wilson (born 4 January 1965) is an English politician and political author. He was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for the Reading East parliamentary constituency in the 2005 general election, being re-elected in ...

in 2005. In between her deselection and the end of her term, she fought off suggestions she would defect to the Conservatives.

Bankruptcy and arrest

Four days after the 2005 general election Griffiths was declared

bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

, owing £29,000 to the

Inland Revenue The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation t ...

. This would have disqualified her from retaking her seat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

had she been reselected and reelected. She failed to appear at her bankruptcy hearing before Reading County Court on Monday 19 September 2005 and a warrant was subsequently issued for her arrest. After convincing the court she had the assets to pay her debts and would co-operate with the proceedings, the warrant was discharged. However, her discharge from bankruptcy was subsequently suspended on the grounds that she was not co-operating, stating that she was in Latvia. This was inaccurately reported in the local press as her being made bankrupt a second time.

After politics

Blogs

During 2005-6 Griffiths wrote a political blog, called 'janestheone' after her election slogan in earlier days. On her blog, she described herself as ''a writer, linguist and political blogger'' and as being ''internationalist, anti-totalitarian and pro-democracy everywhere in the world''. The blog was suspended following a complaint but she immediately started a new one. The new blog, like the old one, is devoted mainly to criticising

Old Labour The British Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement of the late 19th century and surpassed the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives in the early 1920s. In the 1930s and 1940s, it stressed national planning, using ...

in general and

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...

Labour Party in particular.

Book

In August 2008 she published a book entitled ''The One''.

Personal life

Griffiths is married to Andrew Tattersall, who previously worked as her assistant. She has two children from a previous marriage. She currently lives in Strasbourg. She was well known in her constituency as a keen rat fancier and owner of several pet rats. She also initiated the unsuccessful campaign to return the

fireless locomotive A fireless locomotive is a type of locomotive which uses reciprocating engines powered from a reservoir of compressed air or steam, which is filled at intervals from an external source. They offer advantages over conventional steam locomotives of ...

''Huntley & Palmers No.1'' to Reading.

References

External links

Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Jane GriffithsTheyWorkForYou.com - Jane Griffiths MPJane is the One - Jane Griffith's weblog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffiths, Jane 1954 births Living people Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Reading Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Alumni of St Mary's College, Durham Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 Councillors in Berkshire GCHQ people 20th-century British women politicians 21st-century British women politicians BBC people 20th-century English women 20th-century English people 21st-century English women 21st-century English people Women councillors in England