Woman M.P. Promoted

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31032, 12 April 1966, Page 2

Woman M.P. Promoted

[By SUSAN VAUGHAN) The promotion of Mrs Judith Hart, aged 41, to Minister of State, Commonwealth Relations Office, is an impressive jump for a woman who has been a member of Parliament for only seven years.

j She is among the Labour | Party’s brightest women, whom Mr Wilson has promoted to provide extra youth and vigour among his ministers. She has already proved during the last 18 months as Under-Secretary of State for Scotland that she has the ability to take over very senior posts. Only a few years ago Mrs Hart was said to be one of the thorns in the flesh of Mr Gaitskell, who once stopped her appearing on television because he thought she might give the Labour Party the wrong image.

She was once a strong supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament . and

served for time on its committee.

But she was not a member of the more extreme Committee of 100, and she once sued a Scottish newspaper for saying sffie had taken part in some of the Committee of 100’s civil disobedience campaigns. “I have a love for international peace,” she says, “but I also have respect for law and order in this country." Her interests are not confined to disarmament. She she been very active in Scottish affairs, and has special interests in regional planning, health, science and new towns.

Mrs Hart, considered by many people as Parliament’s most glamorous member, first became interested in politics at the age of 12, when she lived with her parents in Burnley, Lancashire. Degree She was appalled by the effects of the depression she saw around her and so walked into a library one day and borrowed a copy of Marx’s “Das Kapital.” But after one chapter she decided it was not for her.

She went to grammar school and then to the London School of Economics where she gained an honours degree in sociology. From there she went to work in Portsmouth where she met her husband, Dr. Anthony Hart, a scientist, whom she married when she was 20. They now have two sons.

Like so many women in Parliament, Mrs Hart has been a great fighter for the feminist cause, and in 1962 she only just failed to get a bill through Parliament giving women equal rights as jurists. But she is a reluctant feminist.

“I get so damned bored arguing the case of the feminist,” she says. “It’s so boring arguing the obvious. The only people who are not already converted to feminism are the ancient mariners and fuddy-dudddies.” Mrs Hart does not believe that being a feminist means that women must lose theirindividuality. “Women should be given the opportunity of remaining feminine, but should not be deprived of their individualism because of it,” shejjsays.