Margaret Josephine McDonagh, Baroness McDonagh (born 26 June 1961) is a British Labour Party politician and was

General Secretary of the Labour Party The General Secretary of the Labour Party is the most senior employee of the British Labour Party, and acts as the non-voting secretary to the National Executive Committee. When there is a vacancy the National Executive Committee selects a provis ...

from 1998 to 2001. She now works as a management consultant.

Career

McDonagh was part of the

New Labour New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen ...

leadership inner-circle for the 1997 general election campaign and was one of the inner-core deciding the official party position on specific issues. In 1998, McDonagh became Labour's first female general secretary, after serving as deputy general secretary the previous year. She was not always popular with the grassroots and parts of the Parliamentary Party due to her perceived 'control-freakery'. She was considered to have badly mishandled the party's London mayoral candidate selection process, which resulted in

Ken Livingstone Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office i ...

winning

the election ''The Election'' () is a political drama series produced by Hong Kong Television Network (HKTV). With a budget of HK$15 million, filming started in July 2014 and wrapped up on 28 October 2014. Popularly voted to be the inaugural drama of ...

as an independent candidate, leaving the official Labour candidate,

Frank Dobson Frank Gordon Dobson (15 March 1940 – 11 November 2019) was a British Labour Party politician. As Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St. Pancras from 1979 to 2015, he served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Health from 1997 ...

, in third place, with subsequent disapproval amongst the party members. McDonagh later apologised for the mayoral electoral loss. Her organisational skills came to the fore however in the delivery of a second landslide victory at the 2001 general election. She was also criticised for accepting, without consultation, a £100,000 donation from ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...

'' an adult magazine publisher

Richard Desmond Richard Clive Desmond (born 8 December 1951) is a British publisher, businessman and former pornographer. According to the 2021 ''Sunday Times Rich List'', Desmond was the 107th richest person in the United Kingdom. He is the founder of North ...

, and still counting as party members those in arrears of up to 15 months to delay news of declining membership emerging. After stepping down from the position of General Secretary following the 2001 general election, McDonagh took a short

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

business course and became General Manager of

Express Newspapers Northern & Shell (holding company name Northern and Shell Network Ltd) is a British publishing group, founded in December 1974 and owned since then by Richard Desmond. Formerly a publisher of pornographic magazines including '' Penthouse'' and ' ...

. She has been a non-executive director of

Standard Life Standard Life is a life assurance, pensions and long-terms savings company in the UK which is owned by Phoenix Group. History 1825–2010 The Standard Life Assurance Company was established in 1825 and was reincorporated as a mutual assurance ...

TBI plc TBI Limited was an airport owner and operator, incorporated in the United Kingdom in 1972. It was a subsidiary of Airport Concessions and Development Limited (ACDL), owned by Spanish companies Abertis Infraestructuras S.A. (90%) and AENA Desarro ...

and CareCapital Group plc. She is Chair of the Standard Life Charitable Trust. She was created 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 24 June 2004 taking the title Baroness McDonagh, of

Mitcham Mitcham is an area within the London Borough of Merton in South London, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross. Originally a village in the county of Surrey, today it is mainly a residential suburb, and includes Mitcham Common. It ha ...

and of

Morden Morden is a district and town in south London, England, within the London Borough of Merton, in the ceremonial county of Greater London. It adjoins Merton Park and Wimbledon to the north, Mitcham to the east, Sutton to the south and Worcester Pa ...

in the

London Borough of Merton The London Borough of Merton () is a borough in Southwest London, England. The borough was formed under the London Government Act 1963 in 1965 by the merger of the Municipal Borough of Mitcham, the Municipal Borough of Wimbledon and the Merton ...

. In 2013, Margaret McDonagh was appointed chair of the Smart Meter Central Delivery Body, which then became Smart Energy GB, an independent organisation that aims to inform consumers about

smart meter A smart meter is an electronic device that records information such as consumption of electric energy, voltage levels, current, and power factor. Smart meters communicate the information to the consumer for greater clarity of consumption beha ...

s and their national rollout across Great Britain. Her sister is

Siobhain McDonagh Siobhain Ann McDonagh (born 20 February 1960) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Mitcham and Morden since the 1997 general election. She served as an Assistant Whip in the Labour Government, b ...

, MP for

Mitcham and Morden Mitcham is an area within the London Borough of Merton in South London, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross. Originally a village in the county of Surrey, today it is mainly a residential suburb, and includes Mitcham Common. I ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McDonagh, Margaret 1961 births Living people Labour Party (UK) life peers Labour Party (UK) officials Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II Harvard University alumni