Before announcing changes to Britain’s tax system in her first budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves redecorated her own digs. The headline change was swapping a portrait of Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor, with one of Ellen Wilkinson – a trailblazing politician known as “Red Ellen”.
Wilkinson was one of British politics’ most intriguing and complex politicians, and most remarkable campaigners against injustice.
From a humble background, she was first elected to parliament as the Labour MP for Middlesbrough East in 1924 and served until she lost her seat 1931. After four years out of parliament, she became the MP for Jarrow in South Tyneside in 1935, ascending to the rank of minister in the 1945 Labour government.
