Who was former Labour MP Ann Clwyd and what impact did she have on politics?

Ann Clwyd was a pioneer and a trailblazer with a commitment to causes that often brought her into conflict with those who led her own party at Westminster and in Cardiff.

From her early career as a journalist for ITV Wales’ predecessor company, TWW, to her campaigning work for the Kurdish people, she was fearless and relentless in the way she went about her work even when it cost her popularity. 

She was on the losing side in the 1979 devolution referendum which itself split the Labour Party in Wales. 

Becoming an MP was an uphill struggle as she overcame sexism in the Welsh Labour Party to win selection. 

Former Labour MP Ann Clwyd dies aged 86

When she finally won the Cynon Valley by-election in 1984 she became only the fourth woman ever to have represented a Welsh constituency. 

Once she was an MP she made a career for herself as a rebel and was sacked twice from the Labour front bench. 

For once she was on the same side as her leader in 2003 when she backed Tony Blair over the Iraq war, largely because she had long campaigned to highlight the plight of the Kurds under Saddam Hussein. 

In 2012 when her husband died in difficult circumstances in hospital she channelled her grief into campaigning for better responses to NHS complaints. 

That led to her working with the then UK Government health Secretary Jeremy Hunt who asked her to investigate how complaints were handled. 

That in turn led to intense conflict with Mark Drakeford, then the Welsh health minister, and her party in Wales. 

It partly explained her later view that she had been wrong to campaign for devolution.

In her memoirs she recounts a meeting in 2014 with Denzil Davies, a former Labour minister who had never wanted a Welsh parliament. She told him “you were right and I was wrong."

She wrote that “I feel bitterly disappointed and let down by an institution I campaigned so passionately for.”

After 35 years in parliament Ann Clwyd stood down at the 2019 general election.  

She described it as “a great honour to represent the people of the Cynon Valley for so long.”

Her memoir was entitled “Rebel With a Cause.” As an epitaph it couldn’t be more apt. 

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