Daisy Cooper | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2019 | |
| Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats | |
| Assumed office 13 September 2020 | |
| Leader | Ed Davey |
| Preceded by | Ed Davey |
| Member of Parliament for St Albans | |
| Assumed office 12 December 2019 | |
| Preceded by | Anne Main |
| Majority | 6,293 (10.9%) |
| Liberal Democrat portfolios | |
| 2020 | Digital, Culture, Media and Sport |
| 2020 | Justice |
| 2020-2021 | Education |
| 2021- | Health, Wellbeing and Social Care |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 29 October 1981[1] Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England |
| Political party | Liberal Democrats |
| Alma mater | University of Leeds[2] University of Nottingham[3] |
| Website | Official website |
Daisy Cooper (born 29 October 1981)[4] is a British Liberal Democrat politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for St Albans since 2019. She has served as the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2020, and as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Health, Wellbeing and Social Care since 2021.
Cooper was previously the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Education from September 2020 to October 2021, and the spokesperson for Justice and Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from January 2020 to September 2020.
Cooper was born in 1981 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.[5] She gained a Bachelor of Laws honours degree from Leeds University and a Master of Laws degree in public international law from Nottingham University, as well as a foundation certificate in psychotherapy and counselling.[3] Before becoming an MP, Cooper worked in Commonwealth affairs, for Voluntary Service Overseas,[2] for the Hacked Off campaign for victims of press abuse, and for the cross-party group More United.[6] She also runs a local independent campaign group for rail users.[7]
Cooper was the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Suffolk Coastal constituency in the 2010 general election, where she came second behind Thérèse Coffey.[8] Cooper won 29.8% of the vote, an increase of 7.7% from the 2005 general election.[9]
She stood for president of the Liberal Democrats in 2014, coming second to Sal Brinton. During the campaign for the presidency, she declared her support for the group "Humanist and Secularist Liberal Democrats".[10]
In the 2015 general election, Cooper stood in Mid Sussex. She came fourth, losing to the Conservative incumbent Nicholas Soames, with the Liberal Democrats suffering a 26% decrease in their vote share from the 2010 general election.[11][12] Cooper also stood in the 2015 Lewes District Council election held on the same day; she was elected to represent the Lewes Bridge ward. Cooper stepped down as a councillor in 2016.[13]
Cooper was the Liberal Democrat candidate for St Albans in the 2017 general election. She came second behind the incumbent MP Anne Main; Cooper won 32.4% of the vote,[14] an increase of 13.9% from the 2015 general election.[11][15] In 2019, she ran Jo Swinson's successful leadership campaign.[6]
Cooper was elected as the first Liberal Democrat MP for St Albans in the 2019 general election, winning it from the incumbent Conservative MP, Anne Main, who had held the seat since 2005.[16][17][18][19] She is the first liberal MP to be elected to represent this constituency since a Liberal, John Bamford Slack, was elected in 1904. Cooper won 50.1% of the vote, an increase of 17.7% from the 2017 general election,[20] and a majority of 6,293, overturning a Conservative majority of 6,109.[21][22] The Guardian named Cooper as one of the ten new MPs from all political parties to "watch out for".[6]
In January 2020, it was announced Cooper had been appointed as the Liberal Democrats' justice, culture, media and sport spokesperson.[23] In June, she took part in George Floyd protests in Verulamium Park, St Albans, where she gave a speech about police brutality.[24] In September 2020, Cooper was announced as the party's new deputy leader and education spokesperson.[25]
In May 2021, Cooper was a signatory to an open letter from Stylist magazine, alongside celebrities and other public figures, which called on the government to address what it described as an "epidemic of male violence" by funding an "ongoing, high-profile, expert-informed awareness campaign on men’s violence against women and girls".[26]
