AUDREY WISE, the Labour MP for Preston, who has died aged 65, was a hard-line Left-winger of just the kind which Mr Blair and his associates do not wish to encourage. From 1982 to 1987, Wise was a trouble-making Labour national executive committee member and a forceful figure in a number of the party's campaigning organisations. In 1997, opposing Labour's plan to cut benefits for single parents, she said that she disapproved of single mothers going out to work - as if this was the most important contribution they could make. Audrey's maternal grandfather, Charles Crawford, had also been an active socialist. Audrey Brown had scarcely finished her education at Rutherford High School when she married John Wise, another optician, who had previously been blacklisted by his engineering union. If nurseries were really to meet the needs of women and children, she insisted, it was not enough to demand them from the state: the state should provide resources, but the management should be under community control. Audrey Wise, politician, born January 4 1935; died September 2 2000, Available for everyone, funded by readers. Nigel Lawson described her as "the only living female Dalek in captivity". She served as MP for Coventry South West from February 1974-79, a period of tenuous Labour Government with marginal or no majorities. "We should encourage attitudes like that," said Audrey, who believed equal pay was important, but not enough. The last time I heard her speak was at a meeting where she stressed the need for the left to take seriously the preservation of biological diversity. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. She grew up with a profound belief in the need to recognise the proper role of women in society. She is survived by her husband, son and daughter. "Mrs Wise attacks the Labour Government with more ferocity than the Tories can muster together," a minister complained. In 1977 she made herself still more unpopular with the Whips when she and Jeffery Rooker broke ranks to introduce an amendment to the Finance Bill which, supported by the Tories, made personal tax allowances inflation-proof. She listened. Join Facebook to connect with Audrey Wise and others you may know. This led to a landmark 1992 report, which prompted the Conservative government to endorse the committee's findings and led to policies which offered women more choice and control of their circumstances during pregnancy, birth and post-natal care. Equal pay was being proposed on the basis that women should accept the same conditions as men; for example, working nights. At Westminster in the 1970s she was regarded as something of a left-wing nuisance , a state of affairs that she viewed as necessary and desirable. As her family said yesterday: "This was one fight she did not win." She fought authority in general, oppression in capitalistic society in particular, and took on on all-comers. There was no doubt that Mr Tony Benn was correct in describing her as "highly motivated in the sense of right and wrong". It was on the behalf of women, children and families and, most specifically, about the way in which women experience childbirth. See, House of Commons Health Committee (1992) Second Report on the Maternity Services (Winterton report). [2], As a member of the health select committee, she persuaded the committee to hold an inquiry into maternity services. Her most important work was that for which Wise received the least recognition among her political peers. Audrey Wise crusaded for equality for women, for workers' control, better maternity services, the rights of animals, battered wives, more liberal abortion laws, organic food and the Nicaraguan Sandanistas. US election: Could 'naked ballots' make the difference in one swing state. New York will review any Covid-19 vaccine approved by US government, Job losses in sport could reach 300,000 due to coronavirus - with 10,000 already gone, Premiership final to take place behind closed doors at Twickenham, Schools being partially closed due to Covid will be 'way of life' until vaccine, academy chief says, Coronavirus latest news: London added to lockdown 'watch list'. Her integrity was unimpeachable; it went, however, with an unflinching earnestness and a complete absence of charm.
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