From the papers today I have picked up a few facts and opinions about the new Secretary of State for Education:

Facts:

Her parents were a pharmacist and a teacher. She was born on May 9, 1968, in Limavady, Northern Ireland. The family moved to Ireland and then to England, where she attended a number of private schools including Sutton High School, Millfield and Westminster, all schools with Classics departments. She won a place at Oxford to read medicine but switched during her first year at The Queen’s College to study politics, philosophy and economics. She went on to take an MSc in economics at the London School of Economics and in 1996 she married Derek Gadd — who changed his job so that she could pursue her meteoric career.

Eleven days after winning Bolton in the 1997 election she gave birth to the first of her four children.

Good piece in the Education Guardian here.
And the Times has now caught up.

Judgements/opinions

A Catholic, she is one of the breed of younger politicians that takes a consciously strong moral line on issues such as parenting and antisocial behaviour. She is thought to have views well to the right of traditional Labour activists on education. Richard Layard, her former tutor at the LSE, has said: “She is a very strong character with clear values and great inner strength.” She was criticised for making a “cold and clinical” speech in the Commons on the Equitable Life collapse. She may find the requirement to visit schools and universities a tricky proposition as her children are still very young and until now she has tried to get home in time to put them to bed.

I asked the former Head of Classics at Millfield if she had known a Ruth Kelly, and the answer was no.