Stella Creasy

Her elder brother, Matthew Creasy, born in 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, Creasy's family's move south gave her a second chance.

She then 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".

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.

Stella Creasy was born on 5 April 1977 in Sutton Coldfield, and is the daughter of Corinna Frances Avril (Martin) and Philip Charles Creasy; her father is a trained opera singer and her mother a headteacher of a special needs school.

In the 1990s, towards the end of John Major's period as prime minister, Creasy was an intern at the Fabian Society.

Creasy was deputy director of the Involve think tank and worked as a researcher and speech writer for various Labour government ministers, including Douglas Alexander, Charles Clarke and Ross Cranston.

She then became head of public affairs at the Scout Association.

Elected as a councillor in Waltham Forest in 2002, Creasy served as the borough's deputy mayor and later mayor from 2002 until 2003 and for four months in 2010.

After the retirement of Labour MP, Neil Gerrard, Creasy was selected from an all-female shortlist as the party's candidate for Walthamstow.

Creasy received a Titmuss Prize in 2005 for her thesis.

In 2006, having already started work as a parliamentary researcher, she completed her thesis, receiving a doctorate in Social Psychology from LSE.

She highlighted that the average cost of credit charged to these customers was 272% APR, as in the rest of Europe, and that there was a fourfold increase in payday loans since the start of the recession in 2008, which led to cross-party parliamentary support for a cap.

At the 2010 general election, Creasy was elected to Parliament as MP for Walthamstow, winning with 51.8% of the vote and a majority of 9,478 votes.

She supported David Miliband's bid for the Labour Party leadership in 2010.

She served in the frontbench teams of Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman from 2011 to 2015.

Creasy joined Labour's frontbench team in October 2011 as Shadow Minister for Crime Prevention.

In an article published by The Guardian in 2012, she stated that just six companies controlled lending to 90% of the seven million Britons without a bank account or credit card.

She then served as Shadow Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills from October 2013 to September 2015.

In 2014, she was described in a The Independent profile as "one of the brightest lights of Labour's new generation" though also as "haranguing" and "aggressive".

She supported the No More Page 3 campaign to stop The Sun newspaper from publishing pictures of topless glamour models.

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.

At the 2015 general election, Creasy was re-elected as MP for Walthamstow with an increased vote share of 68.9% and an increased majority of 23,195.

Following the Labour Party's defeat in the election, she stood in the Labour Party deputy leadership election.

She stated she was prepared to work with any of the candidates for the party leadership, including Jeremy Corbyn, saying, "that process of rebuilding isn’t about any one person it's about all of us. It's written on the back of our membership card that we achieve more together than we do alone."

She gained 26% of the vote and finished second to Tom Watson.

She did not back any of the final four leadership candidates.

She later became a vocal critic of Corbyn and said the party under his leadership was "running on empty".

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.

She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election.

Also in 2016, she criticised Corbyn after he endorsed decriminalisation of the sex industry and accused left-wing campaign group Momentum of being more interested in "meetings and moralising" than real campaigning.

Creasy supported Remain in the EU referendum in June 2016 and voted against the triggering of Article 50 in February 2017.

At the snap 2017 general election, Creasy was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 80.6% and an increased majority of 32,017.

Creasy argued in September 2018 that misogyny should be made a hate crime.

In June 2019, she described the culture of the Labour movement as toxic.

Later that year, she was protected from a potential trigger ballot and deselection by her local party as she was on maternity leave.

At the 2019 general election, Creasy was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 76.1% and a decreased majority of 30,682.

Creasy has campaigned successfully for more regulation of payday loans companies.