Jane Griffiths

Jane Patricia Griffiths (born 17 April 1954) is a British linguist and politician. She was elected as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for the Reading East parliamentary constituency at the 1997 general election. In 2004, Griffiths was deselected as the Labour candidate for Reading East by her local party. Consequently, she did not stand for re-election. Early life Attending Cedars Grammar School in Leighton Buzzard, Griffiths later studied at the University of Durham, gaining a degree in Russian. From 1977 to 1985, she was a linguist at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and from 1984 to 1997 the Asia editor for BBC Monitoring. At one stage, she was also an English teacher. Politics Griffiths' political career began in 1989 when she was elected to Reading Borough Council. She sat on the council, as a Labour member, until 1999. Prior to the 1997 general election, Griffiths was selected as the Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) for the Reading East constituency. This had been a safe Conservative seat since its creation in 1983. The retiring Tory incumbent Gerard Vaughan had a majority of 14,555. Despite this, Griffiths emerged as one of the surprise winners of the general election.