Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} House Music The Oona King Diaries by Oona King On top of her world. Love her or loathe her, Oona King once seemed to signal a genuinely new type of politician. This was less to do with the cluster of New Briton labels that attach to her - black, Jewish, female, young and funky ( I doubt there is another MP who clubs till dawn) - than her exceptionally informal public personality, that mix of mockney ebullience and in your face frankness. Watching her on Question Time is a bit like listening to a friend ruminate across the kitchen table. Gravitas just doesn't come into it. Yet King became one of the most publicly recognised faces of the celebrated 1997 generation. House Music is fascinating to read in tandem with Alastair Campbell's account of the same years. From very different perspectives, each records how - despite the vaguely hip, modern image of early New Labour - Blair's government quickly became a supremely male, tightly run outfit in which most ministers were required to be a "safe pair of hands". Like a photograph developing slowly before our eyes, these diaries lay out a painfully honest, frequently hilarious record of King's dawning recognition of the incompatibility between her own temperament and this peculiar brand of high politics. It all began so promisingly. In an extended narrative preface, King describes a loving, interesting childhood, the daughter of a passionately fair- minded Jewish mother and a radical, black academic father. (Her aunt is the best-selling childcare guru Miriam Stoppard, making Uncle Tom none other than the world famous playwright.) Thanks to family connections and a hefty dose of chutzpah, King, who as a teenager had decided she was either going to be prime minister or an air hostess, virtually talks her way into a job in the European parliament. She goes on to win the nomination for the safe Labour seat of Bethnal Green and Bow aged 29, just weeks before the historic Labour victory of May 1997. Once in parliament, King skilfully pilots a private member's bill through the House and, after a harrowing visit to Rwanda, sets up an all-party parliamentary group for the prevention of genocide. She is clearly a tenacious and empathetic constituency MP. But rather like Clare Short, with whom she has one memorable, humiliating parliamentary encounter, King fails to decide (or maybe to understand) what kind of parliamentarian she should be: a consistently principled rebel, resigned to a life of powerless integrity on the back benches, or an ambitious player, gaining influence in return for stoic acceptance of the inevitably messy compromises of government. She thus ends up in the unenviable position of being publicly perceived as a fawning "Blair-ista" while never actually receiving promotion. Her support for the Iraq war only confirms the disdain of those who distrust her erratic rebellions. It would be easy to read these diaries as yet another indictment of a still arcane parliamentary culture: the insane hours, the machinations of the whips. And indeed, King puts her lack of promotion largely down to her brave refusal to write an article, under leadership orders, attacking Ken Livingstone's candidacy for London mayor. But she is also honest enough to reveal her many weaknesses, including a chronic inability to organise her professional and personal time and finances. You can't help but feel her agony when her otherwise saintly husband, the film star look-alike Tiberio, announces he is leaving, fed up with never seeing her. Then, after a marital reconciliation of sorts, she repeatedly fails to become pregnant. Reshuffles are invariably times of tension as she watches political contemporaries such as Yvette Cooper and Ruth Kelly, who also happen to have produced several children apiece, rise through the ranks. As New Labour moves towards the tragedy of Iraq and its consequences, King's life becomes a nightmare of round the clock meetings, car crashes, financial insolvency, failed IVF cycles and insomnia, culminating in defeat by George Galloway, backed by a motley angry crew, in the 2005 election. She tells her story with humility, wisdom and considerable wit. Devastating at the time, her defeat as an MP frees her from both the political and IVF treadmill. She has since adopted an adored baby son and still campaigns on the causes that matter to her. So far, she has resisted the corrupting temptations of reality TV. "These days there are few things I love more than being in my own living room in the evening." The most obvious message of House Music is that representative politics remains a pretty tough business in which you need both patrons and minders and a ferocious personal discipline. After crying at one public meeting, King observes: "People were amazed to see such humanity in a politician. They don't seem to understand that being a bit human in politics can be good. But being that human is downright weak." Well, yes, but only if you want to be a minister put up frequently on the Today programme to defend government policy. In every other way, King's frank, funny and self-critical account makes her a far more appealing figure than most. · Melissa Benn's novel One of Us will be published next year. House Music: The Oona King Diaries by Oona King. House of Lords, 20th June 2016. I knew Jo because we both worked for the Kinnocks, we both worked for the Browns, we both worked for Labour Women's Network - which Jo Chaired - and we both had a habit of ending up in refugee camps. In the run-up to Jo's election as an MP, she told me my diaries of Westminster nearly put her off. "Thing is", she said, "I know my constituency would never cause me as much grief as yours." This is the only thing Jo was wrong about. THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES: WHY OUR FUTURE DEPENDS ON THEM. Speech to Parliament as Shadow Broadcast Minister: A generation ago, in 1998, the Labour Government defined the creative industries as comprising any business with the potential to generate, “ wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property”. More About Oona King. Oona has written for papers including The Guardian, New Statesman, Sunday Telegraph, Express and Observer, and is a presenter for television and radio documentaries. Oona’s book about her time in the House of Commons, ‘House Music – The Oona King Diaries’ was published in September 2007 by Bloomsbury, and nominated for the Channel 4 Political Awards ‘Political Book of the Year’ 2008. Oona’s most recent documentary on the life of Martin Luther King was broadcast in April 2008 on BBC Two. Oona’s role as a television presenter includes work for Channel 4 (The Last Word), BBC One (The Struggles I’ve Seen), and Sky News (News reporter and commentator 2005-07). Oona was MP for Bethnal Green & Bow from 1997- 2005, became PPS to the Cabinet Minister for Trade & Industry, and was previously PPS to the Minister for e-Commerce. Oona was appointed to two Select Committees (International Development and Urban Affairs). Other roles included Vice-Chair of the British Council (1998-2002), Chair of the All-Party Group on Business Services (1998-2001), Vice-Chair of London Labour MPs (1997-2005), and Treasurer of Friends of Islam (2001-2005). Oona changed the law in five areas, including housing policy and equalities policy. The work of her All Party Group on peace-keeping was commended by the UN Security Council’s Expert Panel. Before being elected an MP at 29, Oona was a Trade Union organiser representing low-paid workers and spent 5 years as a researcher at the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg. Oona gained a 1st class politics degree from York University (1990), and a scholarship to Berkeley. Oona’s father is African-American from Georgia and her mother is from Newcastle, from a Jewish family with roots in Hungary, Scotland and Ireland. Oona married Tiberio Santomarco in Naples in 1994. In her spare time, Oona enjoys cinema, dance music (in particular house music), cooking, history, and walking in Mile End Park. Oona speaks French and Italian, and a little Bengali. In 2013 Oona fulfilled a lifelong dream of skating with Torvill and Dean when she took part in ITV’s Dancing on Ice. House Music: The Oona King Diaries by Oona King. An eclectic group of guests turned out to celebrate the launch of House Music, the Oona King Diaries, which was launched in Parliament as an ebook by Bloomsbury. The publishing party included a performance of parts of the diary, dramatised by award-winning playwright Tanika Gupta, and starring comedian Dave Schneider, newcomer Shelley Williams, and actor – and Oona’s cousin – Ed Stoppard who stars in Upstairs Downstairs. The diaries bring to life Oona’s personal experience: How does it feel to lose your job in front of ten million people? To sleep on the floor while waiting to vote in the middle of the night? To represent the Secretary of State for Health at a family planning clinic on the day you fail your fifth IVF cycle? To do battle with George Galloway? To be a Jewish woman representing a largely Muslim constituency? To receive death threats from white supremacists? To be the only MP who likes House Music? Oona’s diaries – described by playwright David Hare as “funny, revelatory, and above all authentic” describe her time as an MP. At 29 Oona became one of the youngest MPs in the 1997 Labour landslide, and only the second black woman elected to Parliament. Despite predictions of a bright political future, Oona found Parliament frustrating. Although she changed the law in five areas, her failure to be entirely loyal to the Labour Party leadership put her on a collision course with her whips, and for the first time the dramatisation shows what happened behind the scenes. When Iraq became the biggest issue in British politics, Oona lost her seat to George Galloway in the most symbolic defeat of the Blair government on election night 2005. The diaries contrast geo-politics with the sharp end of poverty in the East End, and Oona’s efforts to deal with one of the highest caseloads of any MP in the UK. Oona said “I wanted to be an MP from the age of 5, but after only 3 years in the job I considered resigning. Everyone hates politicians, but few people realise just what it takes to survive frontline politics. Living inside the Westminster Village, you start to question how we run the country. There’s got to be a better way. And yet Parliament remains one of the most direct and effective ways to change Britain for the better. That’s why a lot of us stay here.” Oona was appointed to the House of Lords as Baroness King of Bow in January 2011. ENDS. Media Enquiries, please contact: Rohema Miah: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , 07908 628 193. House Music: The Oona King Diaries. How does it feel to lose your job in front of ten million people? To ask a Government Whip for time to see your husband? To represent the Secretary of State for Health at a family planning clinic on the day you fail your fifth IVF cycle? To be loved and hated by people who don't even know you? To be the second black woman elected to Parliament? To be a Jewish woman representing a largely Muslim constituency? To be the only MP who likes house music? A decade is a long time in politics, and in these candid diaries Oona King shows how she has changed since becoming an MP in 1997. From the intense strain on her marriage, to her desperate struggle to have a baby, Oona reveals how she chose to abandon her political ambition in favour of another: to have a life. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Reveals how the author chose to abandon her ambition to become Prime Minister in favour of another ambition - to have a life. 'Oona King delivers the most intimate political diary ever . the Bridget Jones of the Commons' Mail on Sunday 'Painfully honest, frequently hilarious . She tells her story with humility, wisdom and considerable wit' Guardian 'Pacy, perceptive, frank, funny, free of the sludge of most political diaries. This is authentic Oona. It would make a good novel - but people would think it a little far-fetched' Neil Kinnock 'Tremendous - funny, revelatory, and above all authentic' David Hare --David Hare.