Harriet Harman is the Deputy Leader of Britain's Labour Party, sharing leadership responsibilities with Peter Mandelson, currently Britain's First Secretary of State. Although Harman is "regularly ridiculed by the media and the Conservative opposition for her alleged lack of understanding of policy," she has successfully used her popularity with grassroots Labour voters and women to win the deputy leadership contest in 2007 while "positioning herself as the staunchest advocate of female voters" (Guha 11). There are any number of reasons why Harman has achieved such dramatic success in a relatively short time, becoming with Mandelson and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, one of the most influential members of government. These three politicians have been characterized by Keshava Guha (11) as "of an earlier generation of Labour members of parliament (MPs) that cut their political teeth while finding a way to reinvent the party in the face of Thatcherism in the 1980s."
Harman is the MP for Camberwell and Peckham, Leader of the House of Commons, and Minister for Women and Equality. She obtained a degree in politics from York University, is qualified as a solicitor, and took a position at Brent Law Centre in 1974. In this role, she became active as an advisor to various labor unions, tenants and resident groups, and other interests who have continued to support her throughout her career. As a Legal Officer to Liberty, Harman took the first cases for women heard by the National Council for Civil Liberties under Britain's Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts ("Harriet Harman" 1).
First elected MP in 1982, Harman immediately set up the first Parliamentary Labour Party Women's Group. In 1984, she was appointed to Labour's front bench as Shadow Minister for Social Services and continued to campaign for places to be reserved for women in the Labour Shadow Cabinet. Her positive professional relationships with Gordon Brown and Jo...