Julia Goldsworthy
Encyclopedia
Julia Anne Goldsworthy is a Special Adviser
in HM Treasury
to Chief Secretary to the Treasury
, Danny Alexander
. She was the Member of Parliament
(MP) for Falmouth and Camborne from 2005 until she lost her seat by 66 votes to George Eustice
, the Conservative
candidate in the 2010 general election in the redefined Camborne and Redruth constituency. In the House of Commons she was the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Communities and Local Government
.
, Cornwall
, where her mother was a local teacher
. She was educated locally at the St Meriadoc Primary School in Camborne
before winning a scholarship to the independent Truro School
. She took a gap year
between school and starting university in 1997, and in 2000 she graduated from Fitzwilliam College
, Cambridge with a BA
(Hons) degree, in History
. She then spent a year at Daiichi University of Economics
in the Fukuoka Prefecture
, Japan
, and the following year completed a Postgraduate
Certificate in Economics at Birkbeck College
, London
in 2002.
Between 2002 and 2004 she worked in Westminster as an economics researcher for the Liberal Democrat MP for Truro and St Austell
, Matthew Taylor, who represented the seat next to the one she would go on to represent. In 2004, she was appointed as a regeneration officer with the Carrick District
Council where she worked until her election to Westminster
less than a year later.
for Falmouth and Camborne when she ousted the sitting Labour
MP Candy Atherton
. Goldsworthy won the seat with a[11] majority of 1,886 and made her maiden speech
on 19 May 2005. She names former Cornish MP David Penhaligon
(1944–1986) as her greatest hero. Her election in 2005 meant that the Liberal Democrats held all the Westminster Parliament seats in Cornwall, for the first time since 1923.
In 2005, she was appointed as a spokesperson on health
by Charles Kennedy
, and promoted in 2006 by new leader Sir Menzies Campbell
as Vince Cable's deputy in the Treasury
team. She was also member of the Public Administration Select Committee
from 2005 until mid-2006. Julia Goldsworthy was promoted again in December 2007 to become the Liberal Democrat shadow secretary on Communities and Local Government. As an MP, she worked on issues such as the 'Axe the Tax' campaign against council tax, pensions, student tuition fees, health funding formulas and the abolition of central housing targets on local communities.
During her parliamentary career, Goldsworthy also used the social networking website Facebook
as a way of gauging the opinions and views of her constituents, and this has led her to campaign for various issues. On 14 May 2008 in the House of Commons debates, she presented a petition on behalf of many thousands of people living in Cornwall who would like to see Cornwall be recognised as a network region on the website. It was announced in December 2009, however, that Facebook will be discontinuing regional networks, and that all present networks will be closed. Goldsworthy is a supporter of the Facebook Cornish Tickbox for the 2011 Census campaign.
In the 2010 General Election, Goldsworthy lost her seat by 66 votes (0.16%) to the Conservative challenger George Eustice
.
to Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Danny Alexander
.
show The Games where she was runner-up. She raised £20,000 for the Cornish Air Ambulance
. She competed in swimming
, hurdles, hammer, curling
, track cycling
, sprint
and kayak slalom
. In parliament, she was the chairwoman of the all-party rowing
group.
Special adviser
Special adviser may refer to:*Special advisers *Special advisers *Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation*United Nations Special Advisers, see Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations...
in HM Treasury
HM Treasury
HM Treasury, in full Her Majesty's Treasury, informally The Treasury, is the United Kingdom government department responsible for developing and executing the British government's public finance policy and economic policy...
to Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is the third most senior ministerial position in HM Treasury, after the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer . In recent years, the office holder has usually been given a junior position in the British Cabinet...
, Danny Alexander
Danny Alexander
Daniel Grian Alexander is a British Liberal Democrat politician who has been Chief Secretary to the Treasury since 2010. He has been the Member of Parliament for the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey constituency since 2005....
. She was the Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for Falmouth and Camborne from 2005 until she lost her seat by 66 votes to George Eustice
George Eustice
Charles George Eustice is a British Conservative Party politician, who was elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament for Camborne and Redruth....
, the Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
candidate in the 2010 general election in the redefined Camborne and Redruth constituency. In the House of Commons she was the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Communities and Local Government
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, is a Cabinet position heading the UK's Department for Communities and Local Government....
.
Early life
Goldsworthy was born in CamborneCamborne
Camborne is a town and civil parish in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is at the western edge of a conurbation comprising Camborne, Pool and Redruth....
, Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, where her mother was a local teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
. She was educated locally at the St Meriadoc Primary School in Camborne
Camborne
Camborne is a town and civil parish in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is at the western edge of a conurbation comprising Camborne, Pool and Redruth....
before winning a scholarship to the independent Truro School
Truro School
Truro School is a mixed independent school located in the city of Truro, Cornwall, UK. The current Headmaster is Paul Smith. Deputy Headteachers are Nick Fisher and Anita Firth . Phil Brewer is Assistant Head and Head of Sixth Form...
. She took a gap year
Gap year
An expression or phrase that is associated with taking time out to travel in between life stages. It is also known as sabbatical, time off and time out that refers to a period of time in which students disengage from curricular education and undertake non curricular activities, such as travel or...
between school and starting university in 1997, and in 2000 she graduated from Fitzwilliam College
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Fitzwilliam College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge in England.The college traces its origins back to 1869 and the foundation of the Non-Collegiate Students Board, a venture intended to offer students from less financially privileged backgrounds a chance to study...
, Cambridge with a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
(Hons) degree, in History
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
. She then spent a year at Daiichi University of Economics
Daiichi Institute of Technology
is a private university in Kirishima, Kagoshima, Japan. The predecessor of the school was founded in 1955, and eventually it adopted the present name in 1985.-External links:...
in the Fukuoka Prefecture
Fukuoka Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on Kyūshū Island. The capital is the city of Fukuoka.- History :Fukuoka Prefecture includes the former provinces of Chikugo, Chikuzen, and Buzen....
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and the following year completed a Postgraduate
Postgraduate education
Postgraduate education involves learning and studying for degrees or other qualifications for which a first or Bachelor's degree generally is required, and is normally considered to be part of higher education...
Certificate in Economics at Birkbeck College
Birkbeck, University of London
Birkbeck, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It offers many Master's and Bachelor's degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 2002.
Between 2002 and 2004 she worked in Westminster as an economics researcher for the Liberal Democrat MP for Truro and St Austell
Truro and St Austell (UK Parliament constituency)
Truro and St Austell was a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-Boundaries:...
, Matthew Taylor, who represented the seat next to the one she would go on to represent. In 2004, she was appointed as a regeneration officer with the Carrick District
Carrick, Cornwall
Carrick was a local government district in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Its council was based in Truro. The main centres of population, industry and commerce were the city of Truro and the towns of Falmouth/Penryn....
Council where she worked until her election to Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
less than a year later.
Parliamentary career
She was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 General ElectionUnited Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
for Falmouth and Camborne when she ousted the sitting Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
MP Candy Atherton
Candy Atherton
Candice Kathleen Atherton , known as Candy Atherton, is a British journalist and was a politician. After serving as a councillor in Islington, where she was Mayor, she was Member of Parliament for Falmouth and Camborne from 1997 to 2005...
. Goldsworthy won the seat with a[11] majority of 1,886 and made her maiden speech
Maiden speech
A maiden speech is the first speech given by a newly elected or appointed member of a legislature or parliament.Traditions surrounding maiden speeches vary from country to country...
on 19 May 2005. She names former Cornish MP David Penhaligon
David Penhaligon
David Charles Penhaligon was a British politician from Cornwall who was a Liberal Member of Parliament from October 1974 until his death...
(1944–1986) as her greatest hero. Her election in 2005 meant that the Liberal Democrats held all the Westminster Parliament seats in Cornwall, for the first time since 1923.
In 2005, she was appointed as a spokesperson on health
Department of Health (United Kingdom)
The Department of Health is a department of the United Kingdom government with responsibility for government policy for health and social care matters and for the National Health Service in England along with a few elements of the same matters which are not otherwise devolved to the Scottish,...
by Charles Kennedy
Charles Kennedy
Charles Peter Kennedy is a British Liberal Democrat politician, who led the Liberal Democrats from 9 August 1999 until 7 January 2006 and is currently a Member of Parliament for the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency....
, and promoted in 2006 by new leader Sir Menzies Campbell
Menzies Campbell
Sir Walter Menzies "Ming" Campbell, CBE, QC, MP is a British Liberal Democrat politician and advocate, and a retired sprinter. He is the Member of Parliament for North East Fife, and was the Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2 March 2006 until 15 October 2007.Campbell held the British record...
as Vince Cable's deputy in the Treasury
HM Treasury
HM Treasury, in full Her Majesty's Treasury, informally The Treasury, is the United Kingdom government department responsible for developing and executing the British government's public finance policy and economic policy...
team. She was also member of the Public Administration Select Committee
Public Administration Select Committee
The Public Administration Select Committee is a Select Committee appointed by the British House of Commons to examine the reports of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and to consider matters relating to the quality and standards of administration provided by civil service departments,...
from 2005 until mid-2006. Julia Goldsworthy was promoted again in December 2007 to become the Liberal Democrat shadow secretary on Communities and Local Government. As an MP, she worked on issues such as the 'Axe the Tax' campaign against council tax, pensions, student tuition fees, health funding formulas and the abolition of central housing targets on local communities.
During her parliamentary career, Goldsworthy also used the social networking website Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
as a way of gauging the opinions and views of her constituents, and this has led her to campaign for various issues. On 14 May 2008 in the House of Commons debates, she presented a petition on behalf of many thousands of people living in Cornwall who would like to see Cornwall be recognised as a network region on the website. It was announced in December 2009, however, that Facebook will be discontinuing regional networks, and that all present networks will be closed. Goldsworthy is a supporter of the Facebook Cornish Tickbox for the 2011 Census campaign.
In the 2010 General Election, Goldsworthy lost her seat by 66 votes (0.16%) to the Conservative challenger George Eustice
George Eustice
Charles George Eustice is a British Conservative Party politician, who was elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament for Camborne and Redruth....
.
Expenses
The Daily Telegraph showed that Goldsworthy in 2006 bought a "£999 television, £1,500 of furniture in House of Fraser, a £1,111 sofa bed and a £1,200 rocking chair from Heal’s, an upmarket furniture store", as part of moving into an unfurnished flat, but she did not claim the full amount for these items. Between 2005 and 2008 she also regularly claimed £400 per month for food, as many other MPs did at the time, without providing receipts to prove the expenditure. She has responded with a full account of her transactions and a statement that she opposed steps to block the publication of MPs' expenses claims. In February 2010 it was again reported that she repaid £1005 for the "designer pink rocking chair" (this was repaid in June 2009) and £171.32 over-claimed in mortgage interest in 2005-06.Post-parliamentary career
Within days of her defeat in the 2010 election, she was named special adviserSpecial advisers in the United Kingdom
A special adviser works in a supporting role to the British government. With media, political or policy expertise, their duty is to assist and advise government ministers.-Role:...
to Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is the third most senior ministerial position in HM Treasury, after the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer . In recent years, the office holder has usually been given a junior position in the British Cabinet...
Danny Alexander
Danny Alexander
Daniel Grian Alexander is a British Liberal Democrat politician who has been Chief Secretary to the Treasury since 2010. He has been the Member of Parliament for the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey constituency since 2005....
.
Personal life
In 2006, Julia Goldsworthy competed on the Channel 4Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
show The Games where she was runner-up. She raised £20,000 for the Cornish Air Ambulance
Air ambulance
An air ambulance is an aircraft used for emergency medical assistance in situations where either a traditional ambulance cannot reach the scene easily or quickly enough, or the patient needs to be transported over a distance or terrain that makes air transportation the most practical transport....
. She competed in swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
, hurdles, hammer, curling
Curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones across a sheet of ice towards a target area. It is related to bowls, boule and shuffleboard. Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called "rocks", across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a...
, track cycling
Cycling
Cycling, also called bicycling or biking, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, or for sport. Persons engaged in cycling are cyclists or bicyclists...
, sprint
Sprint (race)
Sprints are short running events in athletics and track and field. Races over short distances are among the oldest running competitions. The first 13 editions of the Ancient Olympic Games featured only one event—the stadion race, which was a race from one end of the stadium to the other...
and kayak slalom
Slalom canoeing
Whitewater Slalom is a competitive sport where the aim is to navigate a decked canoe or kayak through a course of hanging gates on river rapids in the fastest time possible. It is one of the two kayak and canoeing disciplines at the Summer Olympics, and is referred to by the International Olympic...
. In parliament, she was the chairwoman of the all-party rowing
Rowing (sport)
Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...
group.
External links
- Julia Goldsworthy MP official site
- Falmouth and Camborne Liberal Democrats
- BBC Politics page
- Fast track Stuart Jeffries, The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, March 18, 2006 - Meet the MP: Julia Goldsworthy BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
, 8 June 2005