Diana "Dido" Kennedy

Welcome, one and all, to Politics UK. You will find some basic information and how to sign into the game here.
Post Reply
Heather Whitmore
Conservative MP
Conservative MP
Posts: 50
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:23 pm
Constituency: Hertford and Stortford
XP: 0
Trait(s): None
Discord username: LegolasRedbard

Diana "Dido" Kennedy

Post by Heather Whitmore »

Image

Name: Diana Rosin “Dido” Kennedy
Avatar: Gina McKee
Age: 54 (Born 5 August 1964)
Sex: Female
Ethnicity: White British
Marital Status: Divorced, four children

Party: Conservative
Primary Tribe: Red Tories
Secondary Tribes: Cornerstone, TRG
Brexit Position: Leave
Constituency: Hexham
Year Elected: 2010

Education:

St. Nicholas’ CofE Primary School, Crosby (1969 - 1976)
St. Michael’ CofE High School, Crosby (1976 - 1978)
Durham High School for Girls, Durham (1976 - 1982)

Career:

Woman Police Constable (WPC), Northumbria Police (1982 - 1987)
Detective Constable (DC), Northumbria Police CID (1987 - 1991)
Detective Sergeant (DS), Northumbria Police CID (1991 - 1995)
Detective Inspector (DI), Northumbria Police CID (1995 - 2000)
Detective Chief Inspector (DCI), Northumbria Police CID (2000 - 2005)


Political Career:

Political advisor on policing policy, Conservative Party (2005 - 2008)
Conservative candidate for Sefton Central (nominated 2008, resigned)
Conservative candidate for Hexham (nominated 2008: 2010, 2015, 2017)
Member of Parliament for Hexham (2010 - present)
Minister of State for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (2012 - 2014)
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (2014 - 2015)
Conservative candidate for Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner (2016)
Minister of State for Security (2016 - 2017)
Secretary of State for Justice (2017 - 2018)

Diana Kennedy was born in 1964 in Liverpool Maternity Hospital, the eldest of four children. Her father James was a shipyard manager, and her mother Louise worked as a schoolteacher. In 1966, when Diana was two, her mother died unexpectedly of a heart attack, leaving James to raise her and her three sisters by himself. She attended the local Church of England primary school and high school in Crosby, but only attended the latter for two years as tragedy once again struck the family. In 1978, James Kennedy died after a long struggle with depression and alcoholism, leaving Diana and her three sisters with next to nothing. With the #threat of the children being taken into care, James’ estranged brother Martin, and his wife Elizabeth, took the children in, requiring them to move cross country to a cramped house in Bishop Auckland, County Durham. Martin like his sister was also a teacher, and was able to use his position teaching at the Durham High School for Girls to gain a place for one of his nieces. Being the eldest, Diana was chosen to attend: something which she later said drove a wedge between her and her sisters. At school, she became a keen sportswoman, enjoying hockey and tennis especially, and also took part in the school’s debating club.

Upon leaving school in 1982, needing to bring in money to the house and inspired by a visit from the local police to the school a few years earlier, she chose not to go to university. Before leaving school, she applied for police training but was rejected by the Durham Constabulary. Later in the year, she was accepted for training in Northumbria, becoming a WPC. After five years on the beat, Diana’s superior suggested she apply to join Northumbria’s CID and become a detective. She decided to do so, and after beating off stiff competition from her male colleagues, she achieved the rank of Detective Constable in 1987, beginning an 18 year long career in the CID, most of which was spent on Northumbria’s murder sqaud. She reached the peak of her career in 2000, when she was promoted to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector, and served as deputy senior investigating officer in the high profile murder of Newcastle businessman and drugs tycoon Peter Beaumont-Gowling: a case which remains unsolved. In March 2005, Diana took voluntary redundancy from the police service.

In December 2005, following the election of David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party, Diana was approached by the Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, with the offer coming to work with the party in developing the party’s policing policy. Diana accepted, joining the party after many years of voting for them. She quickly caught the eye of Conservative Central Office, and early in 2006 she became an approved candidate for the party. However, much to her disappointment, she was not included in the priority “A” list. In 2008, she was nominated as the candidate for the safe Labour seat of Sefton Central, where she grew up. However, only a few months later, she resigned as the candidate in order to seek the nomination in the safe Northumbrian Tory seat of Hexham. Despite outcry from the other candidates and many in the party, she won the nomination in November 2008. Diana faced a strong local campaign by the Liberal Democrats, but in 2010 won the seat easily and increased the Conservative vote share.

Following her election, and the formation of the coalition government, Diana struggled to find her feet in Westminster initially, speaking often brutally of her more moderate colleagues. In one widely reported incident, she was caught in an open mic gaffe calling the disgraced Treasury minister David Laws a “bent c*nt” following his resignation over the expenses scandal. However, in July 2010, Northumbria was rocked by the police manhunt for Raoul Moat. Diana volunteered to act as an intermediary between the government and Northumbria Police, catching the eye of the Prime Minister, who earmarked her for promotion. That promotion came in 2010, where she was appointed as Minister of State for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims. In the controversial 2014 Cabinet reshuffle, she was appointed as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, joining the Cabinet for the first time. She did not achieve much during this period, and ended up clashing with the Home Secretary Theresa May over a number of issues, including the issue of television censorship. In 2015, following the government’s re-election, she was unexpectedly sacked from the Cabinet, with some media speculating that the conflict between her and Theresa May was the cause.

Following her sacking, Diana returned to the backbenches. In 2016 she was the Conservative candidate for the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner election, losing in a landslide to Labour incumbent Vera Baird. A supporter of the UK’s exit from the EU, she joined the Vote Leave campaign following the PCC election, taking a leading role in the campaign in the North East. Following the vote, she backed Boris Johnson to succeed David Cameron, but then backed Andrea Leadsom when he declined to run. When Theresa May was appointed PM, Diana returned to the Home Office as Minister for Security, and co-ordinated the response to the 2017 Westminster attacks, for which she was made a member of the Privy Council. Following the 2017 election, she was promoted to Secretary of State for Justice, a post she would hold until her resignation in November 2018 in opposition to the Prime Minister’s draft Brexit withdrawal agreement. She voted against the deal in the first two meaningful votes in early 2019, but came around to supporting the deal on the third time of asking, aggressively lobbying her colleagues on the right of the party to vote for the deal.

Diana married Paul Marston, a solicitor in 1999. The pair have three children, James (b. 2002), and twins Emma and Louise (b. 2006). The couple divorced in 2011. Kennedy’s sister Georgie is a member of the Labour Party, and in 2018 was elected as councillor for the Castle ward on Sunderland City Council.


Indicative Vote Record

Customs Union - No
Confirmatory public vote - No
Labour plan - No
‘Common market 2.0’ - No
Revoke Article 50 - No
No deal - No
Contingent preferential arrangements - Yes
EEA/Efta without customs union - Yes
Heather Whitmore
Conservative MP
Conservative MP
Posts: 50
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:23 pm
Constituency: Hertford and Stortford
XP: 0
Trait(s): None
Discord username: LegolasRedbard

Re: Diana "Dido" Kennedy

Post by Heather Whitmore »

Signing out
Post Reply

Return to “New Players”