Background
RICHARDSON, Jo was born on August 28, 1923. Daughter of the late J.J. Richardson and Mrs. F.R. Richardson.
RICHARDSON, Jo was born on August 28, 1923. Daughter of the late J.J. Richardson and Mrs. F.R. Richardson.
Southend-on-Sea High School for Girls. Spoken languages: English, some French and German.
Richardson began her political career as Ian Mikardo"s secretary. In 1951 Richardson was elected to Hornsey Borough Council and became Mikardo"s full-time secretary and working partner in his business which involved trade with eastern Europe. She contested the parliamentary seats of Monmouth in 1951 and 1955, Hornchurch in 1959, and Harrow East in 1964.
She was seen as a peace campaigner on the hard left of the Labour Party.
She was a central figure of the feminist left and helped to expand women"s rights in Britain and was the head of a group of women MPs that supported the anti-pornography position. She was also a pro-choice campaigner.
She co-authored the pamphlets "Keep Left" (1947) and "Keeping Left" (1950) with Dick Crossman, Michael Foot and Ian Mikardo. In 1985 Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) defector Oleg Gordievsky named Richardson and two other left-wing Labour MPs as confidential contacts of his embassy.
Jo Richardson Community School, in the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, was named in honour of Josephine.
Agnostic
She co-ordinated the "Keep Left Group" and went on to become the secretary of the Tribune Group before co-ordinating the Victory for Socialism Campaign. She was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group but resigned in 1988 in protest at Tony Benn"s decision to challenge Neil Kinnock for the leadership.
46th United Kingdom Parliament. 47th United Kingdom Parliament. 48th United Kingdom Parliament.
49th United Kingdom Parliament.
50th United Kingdom Parliament. 51st United Kingdom Parliament]
At the time of her death she was Member of Parliament for Barking, a post she had held since 1974.
She also served as a member of the Shadow Cabinet. Richardson also served as an executive member of the National Council for Civil Liberties.
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