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13 Questions: Dame Anne Begg
20th January 2011
Anne Begg is the Labour MP for Aberdeen South and the chair of the DWP select committee. A wheelchair user due to Gauchers Disease, a blood disorder which causes bones to break easily, she was granted a damehood in the 2011 honours list for services to disabled people.
Anne was the first wheelchair user to be elected to parliament. Her political interests include welfare reform, pensions, equality (with an emphasis on disability) and broadcasting.
Dame Anne Begg talks about guilty pleasures, holidays and benefit reform in her answers to our 13 Questions.
Anne was the first wheelchair user to be elected to parliament. Her political interests include welfare reform, pensions, equality (with an emphasis on disability) and broadcasting.
Dame Anne Begg talks about guilty pleasures, holidays and benefit reform in her answers to our 13 Questions.
My priority this week is ...
To survive, fitting in all the work I have to do. Sometimes it feels like I swim very hard to often stand still.
The three words I would use to describe myself would be ...
Thrawn, which is a Scottish word that means you won’t back down. My father used to call me a thrawn we bism. Positive and content.
My earliest memory is ...
Of being flower girl at my uncles wedding at three or four years old. I remember watching Auntie Margaret get ready and presenting a horseshoe to her. I grew up in a block of six flats, a tenement. Margaret lived in an upstairs flat and the bridesmaid in another.
If I suddenly became able bodied I would ...
I’ve had an incredible life, why would I change it? But In a way, I’ve gone through something similar already. I had adapted my life to having a progressive degenerative condition with no cure and no treatment. Then I got a letter suggesting that there might be something they could do. Enzyme replacement therapy hasn’t reversed my condition but it has slowed it down.
My guilty pleasure is ...
Star Mix Haribo. I love the sugar rush. Once I open a packet I can’t stop. Then I feel sick.
The last holiday I took was ...
In London last summer. When you travel as much as I do, the one thing you want from a holiday is not to have to. By spending my time off where I live, I don’t need to worry about accessible accommodation. I’ve been doing it for four years now. Last year, some friends came down and we went to Hampton Court Palace, the theatre and probably too many galleries.
The first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning is ...
Is that the time? Do I have to get up? As I have a sore back it takes me a bit longer to get it moving. I have to build in a good half hour more than other people. It used to be an hour and a half.
My dream job would be ...
I’m doing it. I began to have mobility problems at about 16, but with a big battle I eventually became a secondary school teacher. I loved it and did it for 19 years. I didn’t intend being an MP but it was the absolute right decision. Then my goal was to become chair of a select committee, elected by the whole parliament. That has recently happened.
The last thing I laughed out loud at was ...
Being made a Dame. It was so unexpected. I thought it was very funny and my friends did too. It was the peak of any ambition my mother ever had for me, more so than becoming an MP.
Before I die I just have to ...
If I ever get around to it I’d like to write a memoir called Living Life at Bum Level. I haven’t kept diaries though and my memory isn’t that great.
The one thing I've done before but would never do again is ...
I’m actually quite good at not going along with things if they are not for me. When I make my mind up, I go wholeheartedly into it.
Given half a chance I'd probably bore you with ...
Pensions or benefit reform. I know these things are considered boring. It’s my job to make them less so.
I predict ...
That after quite a lot of advances, particularly in equal rights and support for disabled people over the past 13 years, things are going to go backwards over the next 5 or so, and they’re going to get more difficult for disabled people in terms of the support they get from the government. I’m an optimist and I’m finding some of this very depressing because at the moment we don’t know how it’s going to end up. Everything is happening at once and a lot of the government’s suggestions go further than I was anticipating.
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Comments
The attitude of Dame Anne Begg seems rather defeatist. Are none of our MPs going to take a stand for disabled people's rights?
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I agree,
I read her interview as I really thought she would be more pro active for the rights of disabled people regarding so called .Welfare Reform and the way in which disabled people are reported in the media......
Sadly, it appears not.
She describes herself as an "Optimist" but after reading her interview I feel I disagree.
Very disappointed!
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