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Margaret McDonagh, Baroness McDonagh

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The Right Honourable
The Baroness McDonagh
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
24 June 2004 – 24 June 2023
Life peerage
General Secretary of the Labour Party
In office
1998–2001
LeaderTony Blair
Preceded byTom Sawyer
Succeeded byDavid Triesman
Personal details
Born
Margaret Josephine McDonagh

(1961-06-26)26 June 1961
Mitcham, Surrey, England
Died24 June 2023(2023-06-24) (aged 61)
Colliers Wood, London, England
Political partyLabour
RelationsSiobhain McDonagh (sister)
EducationHoly Cross School, New Malden Kingston College of Further Education
Alma mater
Signature

Margaret Josephine McDonagh, Baroness McDonagh (26 June 1961 – 24 June 2023) was a British Labour politician who served as General Secretary of the Labour Party from 1998 to 2001.[1][2] She later worked as a management consultant and was a co-president of the Labour Party Irish Society,[3][4] and sat in the House of Lords as a life peer from 2004 until her death.

Early life and education

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Margaret Josephine McDonagh was born on 26 June 1961 in Mitcham, Surrey, to an Irish family.[5] She was the younger of two daughters of Cumin McDonagh, a construction labourer, and Breda McDonagh (née Doogue), a psychiatric nurse. Her elder sister was Siobhain McDonagh, who was elected the Labour member of Parliament for Mitcham and Morden in 1997.[5] Margaret was educated at Holy Cross School in New Malden and gained a Bachelor of Science degree in government at Brunel University London and a Master of Arts in advanced marketing at Kingston Business School,[5] and later completed an Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.[3]

Career

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McDonagh was part of the New Labour leadership inner circle for the 1997 general election campaign and was one of the inner-core deciding the official party position on specific issues.[2][6]

In 1998, McDonagh became Labour's first female general secretary, after having served as deputy general secretary and general election campaign co-ordinator the previous year. She was not always popular with the grassroots and parts of the Parliamentary Party due to her perceived "control-freakery".[2][7] She was considered to have badly mishandled the party's London mayoral candidate selection process, which resulted in Ken Livingstone winning 2000 mayoral election as an independent candidate, leaving the official Labour candidate, Frank Dobson, in third place, with subsequent disapproval amongst the party members.[8][2][9] McDonagh later apologised for the mayoral electoral loss.[6] Her organisational skills came to the fore however in the delivery of two general election landslide victories in the 1997 and 2001 general election.[2] She was also criticised for accepting, without consultation, a £100,000 donation from Daily Express and adult magazine publisher Richard Desmond, and for still counting as party members those in arrears of up to 15 months to delay news of declining membership emerging.[10]

After stepping down from the position of General Secretary following the 2001 general election,[11] McDonagh took a short Harvard University business course and became general manager of Express Newspapers.[6][12] She was a non-executive director of Standard Life, TBI plc, and CareCapital Group plc. She was chair of the Standard Life Charitable Trust.[3]

McDonagh became a life peer on 24 June 2004, and was created Baroness McDonagh, of Mitcham and of Morden in the London Borough of Merton.[13]

In 2013, McDonagh was appointed chair of the Smart Meter Central Delivery Body, which then became Smart Energy GB, an independent organisation that aims to inform consumers about smart meters and their national rollout across Great Britain.[14]

Personal life

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McDonagh lived with her sister Siobhain in Colliers Wood, London, for most of their adult lives. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2021.[5] In March 2023 her sister took a £1.2 million interest-free loan from Labour donor Lord Alli, to buy a house in south-west London with downstairs bedroom and bathroom suited for her terminally ill sister.[15]

She died on 24 June 2023, at age 61, and 19 years to the day after she was first appointed to the Lords.[5][16][17] She was described as the "linchpin" of New Labour.[18] Pat McFadden wrote that she was a "true working-class hero".[19]

Legacy

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At Labour Party Conference 2023 it was announced that the Labour party would be launching the Margaret McDonagh Leadership Academy in her honour. David Evans, the General Secretary of the Labour Party, speaking at the launch of the Academy said it will "ensure that future generations will also know Margaret".[20]

References

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  1. ^ "Baroness McDonagh". Archived from the original on 2 February 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
  2. ^ a b c d e Dunne, Ray (27 March 2001). "Margaret McDonagh: Labour general secretary". BBC. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  3. ^ a b c "McDonagh". Who's Who. A & C Black. 2019. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U44450. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ "The Committee". Labour Party Irish Society. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d e Langdon, Julia (25 June 2023). "Lady McDonagh obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
  6. ^ a b c "Former Labour chief joins Express". BBC. 11 October 2001. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  7. ^ Davies, Liz (29 March 2001). "Labour pains". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
  8. ^ Assinder, Nick (7 March 2000). "Livingstone sparks Labour inquest". BBC. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  9. ^ Watt, Nicholas; Maguire, Kevin (8 March 2000). "Knives out for McDonagh after selection fiasco". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  10. ^ Grice, Andrew (25 August 2002). "David Triesman: The Blairite trade unionist determined to square the funding circle". The Independent. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
  11. ^ McSmith, Andy (4 October 2001). "Smiles mask the tensions at the end of McDonagh's reign". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
  12. ^ Wells, Matt; Maguire, Kevin (12 October 2001). "Woman behind Labour landslides gets job at Express". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  13. ^ "No. 57341". The London Gazette. 30 June 2004. p. 8139.
  14. ^ "Appointment of Central Delivery Body Chair Baroness Margaret McDonagh". Central Delivery Body. 19 June 2013. Archived from the original on 15 June 2014. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  15. ^ Gibbons, Amy (26 September 2024). "Labour MP took £1.2m loan from Lord Alli to buy house for her sister". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
  16. ^ Maidment, Adam (24 June 2023). "Sir Keir Starmer leads tributes as Margaret McDonagh - Labour's first female general secretary – dies at 61". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  17. ^ McDonagh, Siobhain [@Siobhain_Mc] (24 June 2023). "At 9.38am this morning my extraordinary sister peacefully passed away at home surrounded by friends who loved her. She was the first female, the youngest & most successful ⁦@UKLabour⁩ General Secretary in history. She was kind, generous and brave. I loved with my whole heart" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  18. ^ Savage, Michael (24 June 2023). "'A tour de force': tributes pour in for Margaret McDonagh, linchpin of Tony Blair's New Labour". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  19. ^ McFadden, Pat (25 June 2023). "Margaret McDonagh obituary: 'We have lost a true working-class hero'". LabourList. Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  20. ^ "as 'YIMBY' chancellor vows 'planning revolution'". Sky News. 18 April 2022. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
Party political offices
Preceded by General Secretary of the Labour Party
1998–2001 		Succeeded by
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