I first met Glenda Jackson in 2003. I was a young, impressionable university student and she had come to speak at our local Labour party meeting. The hot topic of the day was the war in Iraq. Glenda was unashamedly against the war and wasn’t mincing her words about Tony Blair. She was under a huge amount of pressure to vote for the war, but she told us that her conscience wouldn’t allow her to do so.
It has been two decades but I clearly recall Glenda impressing us with her powerful oratory, her independent spirit and her strong sense of social justice. It was a theme throughout her political career for 23 years as my local MP for Hampstead, and the example she set as a good constituency MP inspired me.
