Candy Atherton
Member of Parliament
for Falmouth and Camborne
In office
1 May 1997 – 11 April 2005
Preceded bySebastian Coe
Succeeded byJulia Goldsworthy
Personal details
Born
Candice Kathleen Atherton

(1955-09-21)21 September 1955
Surrey, England
Died30 October 2017(2017-10-30) (aged 62)
Luton, Bedfordshire, England
Political partyLabour
Alma materPolytechnic of North London
ProfessionFreelance journalist (postfeminism)

Candice Kathleen Atherton (21 September 1955 – 30 October 2017) was a British Labour politician and journalist. After serving as a councillor in Islington, where she was mayor, she was Member of Parliament (MP) for Falmouth and Camborne from 1997 to 2005. In her later life she lived in Cornwall and was a member of Cornwall Council.

Early life

Born in Surrey,[1] she attended the independent Roman Catholic all-girls Convent of the Sacred Heart (now Woldingham School) in Woldingham, Surrey, then Midhurst Grammar School in West Sussex. From the Polytechnic of North London (now London Metropolitan University), she graduated BA in Applied Social Studies in 1985.

Professional career

Atherton worked as a journalist from 1980. In 1984, she co-founded Everywoman – a "post-feminist" women's magazine – and later co-wrote a book on housing for single homeless people in North London. Atherton also worked with ex-offenders, and co-founded a women's shelter in West Sussex.

Political career

In 1982, she led protests within the Labour Party and the CND movement against the Task Force sent to the Falkland Islands.[2]

From 1986 to 1992, she served as a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Islington and was mayor for the year 1989–1990. She chaired the Women's and Disability Committees of both Islington and the Association of London Labour Authorities.

Atherton stood for Labour at Chesham and Amersham in the 1992 general election. In the early 1990s, she left London and lived in Westbury, Wiltshire, where she stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate in the elections of 1993 to Wiltshire County Council.[3]

She then worked for the Labour Party and Unison, before being selected to fight the three-way marginal seat of Falmouth and Camborne in Cornwall, after the local Labour Party had imposed the first all-women shortlist in the country. Such shortlists were subsequently ruled to be in breach of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, and thus unlawful.[4] Despite that judgement, she remained in place as the candidate for the 1997 general election. Taking Labour from third place to first, she was elected as the Member of Parliament for Falmouth and Camborne, holding the seat until the election of 2005.

She doubled her majority in the 2001 election, having successfully campaigned for Objective One status for Cornwall, for the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, and for a university in Cornwall. She spearheaded the campaign to open a Minor Injuries Unit in Camborne Redruth Community Hospital – now used by more than 12,000 people a year – and the campaign to expose the nerve gas station at Nancekuke (RRH Portreath) in her constituency.[5]

At the 2005 general election, Atherton lost her seat to Liberal Democrat Julia Goldsworthy by a majority of 1,886. Afterwards, she continued to campaign for women's political advancement, disability rights and rural housing reform.[6] As of 2021, Atherton is the most recent Labour MP to represent one of the six constituencies of Cornwall.

Paul Phillips, a gay aide Atherton employed for a year until March 2004, resigned and claimed discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, accusing her of homophobia and of asking him to find information on her Conservative opponent in Falmouth because he was also gay.[7] The tribunal found in Atherton's favour.[8] Atherton's record of voting in the House of Commons was generally supportive of gay rights.[9]

After Parliament

From 2005 to 2008, Atherton was a board member of the Housing Corporation and she chaired the Rural Housing Advisory Panel, which advises the British government on rural housing issues. In 2006, she founded Atherton Associates, a public affairs company,[10] and has worked for British Waterways and the Inland Waterways Association and with Weber Shandwick Public Affairs. From October 2008, she was a board member of the Homes and Communities Agency. She was the vice chair of the Truro and Falmouth Constituency Labour Party and was member of the Labour Party's South West Regional Board.

Atherton married a Cornishman, Broderick Ross, in 2002, and lived with him in Falmouth, Cornwall. In 2009 Atherton, her husband, her mother Pam Atherton and mother-in law Betty Ross stood for election to the newly formed Cornwall Council. Atherton contested the Carn Brea North division, finishing third in a field of four, with 23% of the vote, while her husband finished last out of four in Camborne Central with 11%. Both seats were won by the Conservatives. Pam Atherton finished last out of six in St Day and Lanner with 3%, and Betty Ross finished last out of seven in Wendron, both of those contests being won by Independents.

Atherton was elected to Cornwall Council in the 2013 local elections,[11] where she represented the Falmouth Smithick division until her death.[12]

In 2014, she acted as the spearhead to pass an Article 4 direction through Cornwall Council, a piece of legislation which requires landlords planning to convert a property into a house of multiple occupancy (HMO) to have planning permission.[13]

She opposed the expansion of Falmouth University in 2016.[14]

Death

Atherton died suddenly overnight in Luton,[15] Bedfordshire, on 30 October 2017 at the age of 62.[16][17] Prime Minister Theresa May paid tribute to her at Prime Minister's Questions on 1 November, which were echoed by Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  2. ↑ Julian Lewis, When Is a Smear Not a Smear?, in Salisbury Review, October 1984, online at julianlewis.net
  3. ↑ Colin Rallings, Michael Thrasher, Wiltshire County Council election Results 1973–2005, electionscentre.co.uk
  4. ↑ Rentoul, John; Ward, Stephen; MacIntyre, Donald (9 January 1996). "Labour blow as all-women lists outlawed". The Independent. London. Retrieved 28 April 2010.
  5. ↑ "Workers 'poisoned' at nerve gas base". BBC News. 18 January 2000. Retrieved 30 December 2023.
  6. ↑ "Former Labour MP Candy Atherton dies". BBC News. 31 October 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  7. ↑ "Aide asked to 'dig dirt' on rival". 25 January 2005. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  8. ↑ Berry, Mike (23 March 2005). "Cornwall MP cleared of sexual orientation discrimination". Personnel Today. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  9. ↑ "Ms Candy Atherton compared to 'Homosexuality - Equal rights'". publicwhip.org.uk. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  10. ↑ Atherton Associates website Archived 16 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine, athertonassociates.co.uk. Retrieved 31 October 2017.
  11. ↑ "Election results for Falmouth Smithick". Cornwall Council. 2 May 2013. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  12. ↑ Marsden, Harriet (8 November 2017). "Candy Atherton: Popular former Labour MP renowned for her service". The Independent. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  13. ↑ "Council clamp-down on multi occupancy homes in Falmouth as 'Article 4' finally agreed". Falmouth Packet. 5 March 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  14. ↑ "Universities' expansion plans opposed by Falmouth councillors who agree the town is at "bursting point"". Falmouth Packet. 25 May 2016. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  15. ↑ "DOR Q4/2017 in LUTON (315-1A)". GRO Online Indexes. General Register Office for England and Wales. Entry Number 516369790. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  16. ↑ Channon, Max (31 October 2017). "'Sudden' death of former Labour MP". PlymouthLive. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  17. ↑ Langdon, Julia (3 November 2017). "Candy Atherton obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
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