Gloria De Piero | |||||||||||||||||||
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 Official portrait, 2017 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Member of Parliament forAshfield | |||||||||||||||||||
| In office 6 May 2010 – 6 November 2019 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Geoff Hoon | ||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Lee Anderson | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1972-12-21)21 December 1972 (age 52) Bradford,West Riding of Yorkshire, England | ||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Labour | ||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations | Alliance for Workers' Liberty (Formerly)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | University of Central England (BA) University of London (MSc) | ||||||||||||||||||
Gloria De Piero (born 21 December 1972) is a British broadcaster and formerLabour Party politician who served asMember of Parliament (MP) forAshfield inNottinghamshire from 2010 to 2019.
De Piero began her television career at theBBC andITV, and was political editor ofGMTV from 2003 to 2010. De Piero returned to broadcasting in 2020, and has been a presenter onGB News since 2021.
De Piero was appointed to the oppositionfront bench in 2010, and served in the shadow cabinets ofEd Miliband andJeremy Corbyn between 2013 and 2016.
Gloria De Piero was born on 21 December 1972 inBradford,West Riding of Yorkshire, England to Giorgio and Maddalena De Piero.[2] Her parents areItalian immigrants who moved to the United Kingdom to work in Bradford's textile mills. Her father had a mental health crisis when she was around the age of nine. This resulted in him requiring admissions to psychiatric hospitals throughout her childhood. His mental health meant that he could not continue to work, and De Piero's mother gave up her job to look after him, and the family lived onbenefits.[3]
De Piero attended Yorkshire Martyrs Catholic College where she obtained fiveGCSEs, andBradford College where she gained two DA-levels.[3] During her youth, De Piero was a member ofSocialist Organiser, and joined theLabour Party's student wingLabour Students at the age of 18.[4][5] De Piero then studied sociology at theUniversity of Central England (nowBirmingham City University) and theUniversity of Westminster, graduating with a first.[2][3] She was involved in the Labour Students' campaign in 1996–1997 as one of its national officers based in London.[5] Following the1997 general election which resulted in the Labour Party winning in a landslide, De Piero applied for several government positions including as a special adviser, parliamentary researcher, and at left-wing think tanks, but failed to gain employment.[6][3]
De Piero worked as a researcher forITV'sJonathan Dimbleby show.[3] She then moved to theBBC where she worked atOn the Record.[7] While working at the BBC, she completed a master's degree atBirkbeck, University of London.[8] From 2003 to 2010, she was the political editor forGMTV.[9]
On 2 June 2020, De Piero was announced as a presenter on the newTimes Radio station.[10] She presented her own show on Friday mornings, and co-presented the Sunday morning political showG&T alongside the former political editor ofThe Sun,Tom Newton Dunn.[11] In April 2021 she announced that she was joining the weekday afternoon programme ofGB News, a new TV channel.[12] In August it was announced that De Piero would host a new political programme on the channel:The Briefing: Lunchtime with Gloria De Piero.[13] She launched interview showGloria Meets on the network in November 2022.[14]
In February 2010, De Piero resigned as GMTV's political editor to seek selection as the Labour candidate for theAshfield constituency in the2010 general election.[9] The candidacy became vacant following the announcement that the constituency's Labour MP, formerDefence SecretaryGeoff Hoon, would be stepping down at the election.[15] On 21 March, she was selected as the party's candidate.[16] De Piero was elected with a majority of 192 votes (reduced from 10,213 in 2005) after a 17.2% swing to theLiberal Democrats.[17] During her election campaign, it was reported that she had posed for topless photographs for a modelling agency at the age of 15.[18][19] Three years later, an unnamed news agency attempted to buy the photographs on behalf of a national newspaper.[20] It later emerged thatThe Mail on Sunday had purchased the photographs in 2010. De Piero issued a legal warning to the newspaper that she had been underage when the photographs were taken and the negatives were returned to her with an apology.[3][21]
In October 2010, Labour leaderEd Miliband appointed De Piero as a shadow culture minister.[22] In the 2011 reshuffle, De Piero became Shadow Minister for Crime Prevention,[23] and in 2013, she was promoted to theshadow cabinet as Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities.[24]
In 2012, De Piero held a national roadshow calledWhy Do People Hate Me? to discover why voters were so disenchanted with politicians. She interviewed six groups of people including retired miners and warehouse workers.[25][26]
At the2015 general election, De Piero held Ashfield with an increased majority of 8,820.[27][28] In September 2015, De Piero was elected to the Labour Party's Conference Arrangements Committee with 109,888 votes.[29] In new Labour leaderJeremy Corbyn's firstshadow cabinet, De Piero was made Shadow Minister for Young People and Voter Registration, a new shadow cabinet-level role.[30] Sheresigned her shadow cabinet position on 26 June 2016, among dozens of her colleagues, believing Corbyn could not lead the party to a general election victory.[31][32]
De Piero supported the UK remaining within the European Union (EU) in the2016 UK EU membership referendum, and was present with Corbyn at the launch of theLabour In for Britain campaign.[33] Approximately 70% of her constituents voted for the UK to leave the EU.[34] She supportedOwen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Corbyn in the2016 Labour leadership election.[35]
At theJune 2017 general election, De Piero's majority in Ashfield fell to just 441 votes.[36] The following month, she accepted a place in Corbyn's shadow front-bench team as Shadow Justice Minister.[37]
In the indicative votes on 27 March 2019, De Piero voted for theNorway-plus model, and to acustoms union with the EU.[38] Afterprime ministerBoris Johnson'sBrexit deal was approved by Parliament, De Piero expressed regret that she failed to vote in favour of Theresa May's earlier Brexit proposal.[39]
In July 2019, she resigned from the shadow front-bench and announced that she would not stand at the next general election. On12 December 2019, she was succeeded as Member of Parliament forAshfield,Nottinghamshire by politicianLee Anderson, her former office manager. Anderson was elected as aConservative but now sits as aReform UK MP.[40][41][42]
De Piero married James Robinson in 2012. Robinson was a media correspondent atThe Guardian, media editor atThe Observer and an employee at PR firm Powerscourt. He was the director of communications for former deputy leader of the Labour PartyTom Watson.[43][44][45][46]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forAshfield 2010–2019 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| New office | Shadow Minister for Culture 2010–2011 | Succeeded by |
| Shadow Minister for Crime Prevention 2011–2013 | Succeeded by | |
| Preceded by | Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities 2013–2015 | Succeeded by |
| New office | Shadow Minister for Young People and Voter Registration 2015–2016 | Succeeded byas Shadow Minister for Voter Engagement and Youth Affairs |
| Preceded by | Shadow Minister for Justice 2017–2019 | Succeeded by |
