1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910153210103321

Autore

Reeves Rachel <1979->

Titolo

Alice in Westminster : the political life of Alice Bacon / / Rachel Reeves ; with Richard Carr

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London, England : , : I.B. Tauris, , 2019

[London, England] : , : Bloomsbury Publishing, , 2019

ISBN

1-350-98525-2

1-78673-151-7

1-78672-151-1

Edizione

[First edition.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource  (257 pages, 14 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations, photographs

Disciplina

324.2092

Soggetti

Politicians - Great Britain

Great Britain Politics and government 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-215) and index.

Nota di contenuto

From the West Riding of Yorkshire (1909-45) -- Picking your battles (1945-64) -- Leeds and Westminster (1945-64) -- Home affairs (1959-67) -- Education reformer (1967-70) -- Final years (1970-93).

Sommario/riassunto

Alice Bacon was one of the twentieth-century's most remarkable female politicians. Born and raised in the Yorkshire town of Normanton, she defied the odds to be elected Labour MP for Leeds North East in the 1945 General Election. Famed in her home town for her unlikely love of sports cars, she was a much-respected, no-nonsense, hard-working representative for her beloved Yorkshire home in Westminster. Mentored by Herbert Morrison and Hugh Gaitskell, she rose through the party becoming a Home Office minister under Roy Jenkins and latterly an Education Minister with responsibility for the introduction of comprehensive schools. In the Home Office in the 1960s she oversaw the introduction of substantial societal changes, including the abolition of the death penalty, the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the legalisation of abortion. Her political career spanned some of the most momentous decades in Britain's postwar history and she played an integral part in some of the most significant social, educational and



political changes which the country has ever witnessed. Labour MP Rachel Reeves here tells Alice Bacon's story, narrating one woman's extraordinary progression from the coalfields to the Commons.