Helen Clark (politician)

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For other persons named Helen Clark, see Helen Clark (disambiguation).

Helen Clark

Born	December 23, 1954
Former MP	Peterborough

Helen Rosemary Clark, previously known as Helen Brinton, (born Helen Rosemary Dyche December 23, 1954 in Derby) is a politician in the United Kingdom. She was a Labour Member of Parliament for Peterborough from 1997 until the 2005 general election, when she lost her seat to Conservative candidate Stewart Jackson.

1 Early life
2 Parliamentary career
3 Personal life
4 References
5 External links
- 5.1 News items

[edit] Early life

She went to Spondon Park Grammar School (became Spondon School in 1974 when merged with Spondon House School, and became West Park Community School in 1989) on Park Road in Spondon, Derby. Clark was educated at the University of Bristol gaining a BA in English Literature, then an MA in Medieval Literature and a PGCE. She worked as a teacher for several years as an assistant English teacher at Katherine Lady Berkeley Comprehensive in Wotton-under-Edge from 1979-82, then teaching English at Harrogate College from 1983-88. She was a lecturer at North Thanet FIE College from 1992-3, then an English teacher and Head of Year 8 at the Rochester Grammar School for Girls from 1993 until her election as a MP in 1997. She had previously stood unsuccessfully as the Labour parliamentary candidate for the Faversham constituency during the 1992 general election.

[edit] Parliamentary career

Early on in her parliamentary career, Clark was widely derided for her enthusiastic displays of loyalty to her party leaders.^[1] Matthew Norman, a diarist for The Guardian described her as An alien life force designed by Millbank to stay on message for a thousand years without batteries. However, she later displayed a rebellious streak through her opposition to the Iraq war. Three days after her defeat in 2005, she left the Labour Party, blaming her defeat on Labour leader Tony Blair and policies such as top-up fees and the Iraq war.^[2].

It was widely reported at this point that she had declared she was planning to defect to the Conservative Party^[2], an announcement which was not locally popular - the leader of the Labour group on the City Council called it "a slap in the face"^[3]. However, by the beginning of June it was reported she had not joined the party, and did not intend to.^[4]

In April 2007, Clark was interviewed by the Observer newspaper for an article about the progress of the female Labour MPs elected in the 1997 General Election. She criticised the personnel management of newly-elected MPs by the Parliamentary Labour Party and indicated that she did not intend to vote in the British General Election expected to take place in 2009. ^[5]

[edit] Personal life

Her marriage to fellow English teacher Ian Brinton, who she married in 1979, ended in 1997; they have a son Hal (born June 1985) and daughter Gwendolen May (born 1982). She subsequently married the political editor for Meridian TV Alan Clark (born c. 1952) on August 6th 2001 at the Great Northern Hotel in Peterborough and assumed his name. As an MP, she was robbed on the Tube, and her house had two arson attacks in 1999.