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By Sam Macrory - 14th February 2011
Many relationships are forged and continued at the workplace. To mark Valentine’s Day, Sam Macrory lists 10 couples who sit, or have sat, together in the House of Commons or Lords.
1. Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper
As the first ever couple to sit together in the same cabinet, Ed Balls (then education secretary) and Yvette Cooper (work and pensions) top our list of parliamentary couples. The two met as budding journalists at the Financial Times in the 1990s, though Balls is reported to have dated Cooper’s tutorial partner Stephanie Flanders – now Newsnight’s economics editor – while studying at Oxford. The Cooper-Balls nuptials in 1998 were celebrated at an Eastbourne hotel, with Tony Blair, on prime ministerial duty in Tokyo, regularly telephoned with updates as the heavily political crowd schmoozed the night away. There is, Balls says, a “pretty strict rule that family comes first” on weekends, but that will have to change if, as some have predicted, Balls and Cooper end up as the ultimate power couple, working together as prime minister and chancellor.
2. Nye Bevan and Jennie Lee
For a few decades until his death in 1960, Nye Bevan and Jennie Lee formed Britain’s highest-profile political couple. Bevan was very much at the fore in the early days, with Lee reeling from both the loss of her parliamentary seat in 1931 and, more significantly, the death of her close friend – and possibly lover – Frank Wise MP in 1933. A year later she married Bevan, becoming so devoted to his cause that Barbara Castle, a fellow pioneer for female politicians, dismissed Lee’s politics as “Nyedolatry”. Lee had little choice. Formerly a member of the Independent Labour Party, she was told by Bevan in the early days of their romance that “it was the Labour Party or nothing”.
3. Nicholas and Ann Winterton
For 37 years Sir Nicholas Winterton served as MP for Macclesfield. For 26 of those, his wife Ann represented Congleton, just a few miles down the road. Theirs was the longest ever Commons partnership, an achievement which party leader David Cameron noted was “something you can both be very proud of”. However, he may also have been slightly relieved when it ended. Lady Winterton attracted unflattering headlines with her penchant for politically-incorrect jokes, while Sir Nicholas created an unwanted storm at the height of the parliamentary expenses scandal when he complained that a “totally different type of people” travelled standard class. But if their reputation took a bruising, their record of parliamentary romance remains firmly intact.
4. Andrew Mackay and Julie Kirkbride
Andrew Mackay and Julie Kirkbride were the first couple of sitting MPs to get married, in 1997. Over a decade later, their political careers still offered real promise. Kirkbride was the photogenic former Tory culture spokesman, while Mackay, who had served in John Major’s government, was employed as David Cameron’s senior parliamentary and political adviser. But both left Parliament in 2010, in the wake of the MP expenses story. Mackay apologised for expenses flaws, while Kirkbride was cleared of any wrongdoing by the parliamentary standards commissioner.
5. Peter and Virginia Bottomley
Her university tutor recalls a “brave” Virginia Garnett, then a sociology student at the University of Essex, giving birth to her first child in 1967 and continuing with her studies. Three months later, Garnett married her long-term boyfriend Peter Bottomley. She was 19, he was 23, and over three decades later, they are still going strong. The pair have notched up nearly 60 years of parliamentary experience between them, with Peter first o arrive at Westminster but Virginia climbing higher, going on to serve as health secretary in the Major government. She stood down in 2005, but remains in Parliament as Baroness Bottomley, while he became Sir Peter in the New Year honours.
6. Duncan Hames and Jo Swinson
A very 21st century proposal, this one. Duncan Hames, the newly elected Liberal Democrat MP for Chippenham, and Jo Swinson, his East Dunbartonshire colleague, seemed to announce their engagement to the world via the social networking site Twitter. “Asking the question,” posted Hames last June. “Answering yes!” replied Swinson, prompting Hames to share the news with friends on Facebook. The pair began dating before Swinson became an MP in 2005, with their relationship largely London-based due to the hundreds of miles which separate their constituencies. They may not quite be at the power couple stage, but in Liberal Democrat circles at least, this is a pair to watch.
7. Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey
Trailing the Cooper-Balls coupling in the Labour rankings are Harriet Harman, the party’s deputy leader, and Jack Dromey, the backbencher and former union head honcho. Harman had already notched up over three decades in Parliament by the time Dromey joined her in 2010: surprisingly enough, given his wife’s enthusiasm for all things feminist, he was chosen to fight a safe seat which senior Labour figures – Harman included – had conveniently decided should not be made to choose its candidate from an all-women shortlist. The pair met at the picket line outside the Grunwick film processing plant in 1977, with their contrasting backgrounds – Harman is the St Paul’s-educated niece of a peer, and Dromey a left-wing union man – bridged when they married five years later.
8. Rhodri Morgan and Julie Morgan
The Morgans only overlapped in Parliament for a few years, but were the leading political partnership in Wales for considerably longer. After meeting through a shared passion for the Labour Party, they married in 1967. Twenty years later Rhodri was elected an MP; a decade after that, Julie joined him at Westminster. “It was a wonderful time,” she recalls. “We were in London together, away from home, and it was a unique situation.” Despite the packed diaries, every summer, they headed to West Wales for a camping holiday by the sea. Now 71, Rhodri, after nearly a decade as first minister of Wales, has retired from frontline politics while Julie, five years his junior, will stand for the Welsh Assembly in May. The holidays will continue, whatever the result. “We swim right out and back, and have fresh mackerel for supper. Nothing could be nicer,” Julie explains. It sounds like a good recipe for romantic success.
9. Lord Thomas and Lady Walmsley
Of the married couples in the House of the Lords, perhaps the most romantic are the Liberal Democrat pairing of Lord Thomas of Gresford and Baroness Walmsley. Both had to cope with the deaths of their previous partners, before finding happiness in the Upper House. And the arrangement, says Baroness Walmsley, works perfectly. “The job we do in Parliament is a rather unusual one involving late hours and having to be away from home a lot. We are lucky that, although we have different interests, we have a common understanding of what the job entails. Though we don’t live in each other’s pockets, it enables us to spend much more time together than we otherwise might. It’s a very successful partnership.”
10. Frank Doran and Joan Ruddock
This romance almost slipped below The House Magazine’s radar, with the couple’s wedding last September a low-key affair. But the romance has been blossoming for years, with Doran, who lost his Aberdeen South seat at the 1992 election, coming to Westminster to work as a researcher for Ruddock, before returning to the Commons in 1997. The long-lasting relationship has had many MPs asking when the pair would finally wed. They can wonder no more.
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