Justine Miliband vows to take vocal role in Ed’s election campaign

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/27/justine-miliband-ed-election-labour-leader

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Justine Miliband, the wife of the Labour leader, sought to brush off the “two kitchens” controversy as she pledged to campaign alongside her husband in what she described as the “slightly strange role” of a politician’s wife.

In an interview with the Guardian, the environmental law barrister, known professionally as Justine Thornton, said the media storm about which kitchen she and her husband, Ed, used was not what mattered in politics.

“Ed’s granddad died because of politics. He met people who were assassinated because of politics. There is a really, really serious side to politics and there is this other side. I just don’t see the point in getting worried about it,” she said.

“Or you just have a sense of humour about it. At the end of the day, none of that is that important. There are some really serious issues and it is down to people to make a choice about what they see as serious.”

The kitchen row blew up after the Milibands were filmed in a BBC interview chatting in a small, bare room without a table. It emerged later the room was the smaller of their two kitchens, leading to accusations they were deliberately trying to appear to be living modestly.

But the controversy does not appear to have put Thornton off engaging with the media. In her first national newspaper interview, she also indicated she would take on a more vocal position than most leaders’ wives who have tended to limit their appearances during previous elections to being photographed.

She said that she intended to be “supporting Ed as much as possible” while working around the constraints of a full-time job. “I’m looking forward to getting out and talking to voters, and to first-time voters in particular.”

She talked to the Guardian after speaking to a hall of schoolgirls in the marginal constituency of Harrow East, which Labour is hoping to take from the Conservatives. Like Miriam González Durántez , the wife of Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, she has been recently giving talks to young women as they embark on their careers.

Talking of her role as Labour leader’s wife, she said: “Most senior politicians seem to be men, so people more often talk about political wives than political husbands but I’m really hoping that changes by the time your generation gets into power.

“It is a slightly strange role being a political spouse because there is no rulebook … When my husband was first elected to be leader of the Labour party, quite a few people assumed I would give up my job, and I was quite taken aback because it never occurred to me.”

She said she would undoubtedly continue in her job as a barrister specialising in environmental law if her husband entered Downing Street in May.

Miliband also told the pupils about her most recent case in which she said that she won £55m in compensation from the oil giant Shell on behalf of 16,500 Nigerians after their creek was polluted.

During the visit, Miliband was accompanied by Uma Kumaran, Labour’s candidate in Harrow East, who took over when the leader’s wife was asked a political question about GP surgeries that she did not feel qualified to answer.

Miliband met Ed at a dinner party and supported him to get elected to his Doncaster North seat in 2005, but they did not marry until after he became Labour leader. They have two children, Daniel, five, and Samuel, four.

Asked whether they ever disagree about political issues, she said: “We chat about things at night over supper. He tells me about his day and I tell him about mine … Fundamentally we have the same values.”