Caroline Flint

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Caroline Louise Flint (born 20 September 1961 in Twickenham, England) is the Labour Member of Parliament for Don Valley in northern England. She is now public health minister. She is currently Minister of State for Public Health in the Department of Health. She is responsible for health protection, radiation, the potential bird flu epidemic, communicable diseases like TB, HIV and sexual health and government campaigns to tackle obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, smoking and alcohol. Such a high profile job has made her appear regularly on television and radio. Because of this she is considered a 'rising star' in the Government. She has been given the nickname 'Supernanny' after the British television programme.

Flint was educated at Twickenham Girls' School and Richmond Tertiary College before earning her BA (Hons) in American Literature and History from the University of East Anglia. She began her career as a local government officer. Prior to becoming an MP, she was the senior researcher and political officer for the GMB trade union.

Flint has been an MP since 1997. In 1999, she became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Peter Hain in his capacity as Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 2002 she became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Dr John Reid, in his capacity as Leader of the House of Commons and Minister without Portfolio. She joined the Government as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home Office, where she served from June 2003 to May 2005. She became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health in May 2005, with responsibility for Public Health. She was promoted to Minister of State in May 2006.

In February 2007 it was announced that she would be Hazel Blears' campaign manager in her efforts to become Deputy Leader of the Labour Party when John Prescott steps down.

She is a member of the Fabian Society. She is married and has three children.

During her tenure at the home office Caroline Flint embarked on a crusade to ban the sale of magic mushrooms and reclassify them as Class A drugs. There was no public clamour for this bill, yet Flint was determined to outlaw any sale of magic mushrooms in the UK. Flying in the face of scientific evidence that stated magic mushrooms were not even in the top 20 dangerous drugs in the UK, even below tobacco and alcohol, Flint pushed through her bill.