Stella Creasy

Stella Judith Creasy (born 5 April 1977) is a British Labour and Co-operative politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for the London constituency of Walthamstow since 2010. She served in the frontbench teams of Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman from 2011 to 2015. Following the Labour Party's defeat at the 2015 general election, Creasy stood in the Labour Party deputy leadership election, finishing second to Tom Watson. She was a vocal critic of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace him in the 2016 leadership election. Early life and career Creasy was born on 5 April 1977 in Sutton Coldfield, and is the daughter of Corinna Frances Avril and Philip Charles Creasy; her father is a trained opera singer and her mother a headteacher of a special needs school. Her elder brother, Matthew Henry Creasy (born 1974), is an academic. Creasy's mother described her own parents as "very aristocratic" and herself as "enormously privileged", which contributed to her decision to join the Labour Party. After spending her early childhood in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury, her family moved to Colchester where Creasy attended Colchester County High School for Girls, a grammar school. Although she initially failed the eleven-plus exam, the Creasy family's move south gave her a second chance. Creasy attended Magdalene College, Cambridge where she read Social and Political Sciences before earning a PhD in at the London School of Economics (LSE) with a thesis titled "Understanding the lifeworld of social exclusion". In the 1990s, towards the end of John Major's period as prime minister, Creasy was an intern at the Fabian Society.