Margaret Ann Jay, Baroness Jay of Paddington, (née Callaghan; born 18 November 1939), is a British politician for the Labour Party and former BBC television producer and presenter.

Background

Her father was

James Callaghan Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, ( ; 27 March 191226 March 2005), commonly known as Jim Callaghan, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Callaghan is ...

, a Labour politician and prime minister, and she was educated at

Blackheath High School Blackheath High School is an independent day school for girls in Blackheath Village in southeast London, England. It was founded in 1880 as part of the Girls' Day School Trust; the Senior School occupied a purpose-built site in Wemyss Road for ...

Blackheath Blackheath may refer to: Places England *Blackheath, London, England ** Blackheath railway station **Hundred of Blackheath, Kent, an ancient hundred in the north west of the county of Kent, England *Blackheath, Surrey, England ** Hundred of Blackh ...

and

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

. Between 1965 and 1977 she held production posts within the BBC, working on current affairs and

further education Further education (often abbreviated FE) in the United Kingdom and Ireland is education in addition to that received at secondary school, that is distinct from the higher education (HE) offered in universities and other academic institutions. I ...

television programmes. She then became a journalist on the BBC's prestigious ''

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...

'' programme, and Thames Television's '' This Week'' and presented the

BBC 2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

series ''Social History of Medicine''. She has a strong interest in health issues, notably as a campaigner on HIV and

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

. She was a founder director of the National Aids Trust in 1987 and is also a patron of

Help the Aged Help the Aged was a United Kingdom based international charity founded in 1961 by Cecil Jackson-Cole and Hugh Faulkner to help disadvantaged older people who were affected by poverty, isolation and neglect. It merged with Age Concern in 2009 to f ...

. Between 1994 and 1997, Baroness Jay was the Chairman of the charity Attend (then National Association of Hospital and Community Friends). In 2003, she was elected Vice-President of Attend.

Political career

Jay was appointed a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

on 29 July 1992 with the title of Baroness Jay of Paddington, of Paddington in the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and London boroughs, borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of cent ...

, and acted as an opposition

Whip A whip is a tool or weapon designed to strike humans or other animals to exert control through pain compliance or fear of pain. They can also be used without inflicting pain, for audiovisual cues, such as in equestrianism. They are generally e ...

in the House of Lords. Her status as the daughter of a former Prime Minister led to her being nicknamed 'Posh Spice' after her ennoblement. As a peer, in association with the shop workers' union, she led opposition to the liberalisation of Sunday trading hours. After her party's election victory in May 1997, she became Minister of State for Health in the House of Lords. 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. On 11 November 1999 the government's reform bill ( House of Lords Act 1999) was given Royal Assent and more than 660 hereditary peers lost their right to sit and vote in the Lords. She retired from active politics in 2001. Among numerous non-executive roles that she has taken on since retiring from politics, she was a non-executive director of BT Group. She was co-chair of the cross-party Iraq Commission (along with Tom King and Paddy Ashdown) which was established by the

Foreign Policy Centre The Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) is a British think tank specialising in foreign policy. It was founded in 1998 by Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and his colleagues. It was launched at an event with Prime Minister Tony Blair, with the aim of develop ...

think-tank and Channel 4. Before her resignation, Jay gave an interview in which she said she attended a "pretty standard grammar school", which was actually

, an

independent school An independent school is independent in its finances and governance. Also known as private schools, non-governmental, privately funded, or non-state schools, they are not administered by local, state or national governments. In British Eng ...

. (Although, as Jay herself pointed out, during the period when she attended it was a direct-grant school – that is to say, a state-funded

direct grant grammar school A direct grant grammar school was a type of selective secondary school in the United Kingdom that existed between 1945 and 1976. One quarter of the places in these schools were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted ...

.) She drew ridicule when she said she could understand the needs of rural voters because she had a "little cottage" in the country, which turned out to be a £500,000 house in Ireland, and she also had a "substantial property" in the Chilterns.

Personal life

In 1961, Callaghan married fellow journalist Peter Jay, a child of political parents: Douglas Jay, Labour MP and president of the

Board of Trade The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...

, and Margaret Jay, member of the

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

. Peter Jay was appointed ambassador to the United States by his friend

David Owen David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen, (born 2 July 1938) is a British politician and physician who served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs as a Labour Party (UK), Labour Party MP under James Callaghan from 1977 t ...

Foreign Secretary The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...

in her father's government, leading to accusations of nepotism. While in the United States, she met journalist Carl Bernstein, with whom she had a much-publicised extramarital relationship in 1979. Bernstein's then-wife Nora Ephron fictionalised the story in her novel, '' Heartburn'', in which the character of Thelma is a thinly disguised representation of Jay. Peter Jay then had an affair with their nanny, fathering a child in the process (he originally denied paternity). The Jays divorced in 1986 after 25 years of marriage. In 1994, she married AIDS specialist Michael Adler who had been chair of the National AIDS Trust when she was its director. She retained her surname from her first marriage. She has three children: Tamsin, Alice and Patrick.

Arms

References

External links

biographical article, NZ Herald 2005BBC profile 2001
, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Jay of Paddington, Margaret Jay, Baroness 1939 births Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford BBC television presenters BBC television producers English people of Irish descent English people of Jewish descent Children of prime ministers of the United Kingdom Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom Labour Party (UK) life peers Leaders of the House of Lords Living people Lords Privy Seal Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Panorama (British TV programme) People educated at Blackheath High School Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford British women television producers Daughters of barons Women's ministers

Jay A jay is a member of a number of species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the Crow family (biology), family, Corvidae. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the magpies are rather complex. For examp ...