Ian McCartney
Sir Ian McCartney (born 25 April 1951) is a British Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Makerfield from 1987 and 2010. McCartney served in Tony Blair's Cabinet from 2003 until 2007, when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. He was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2010 Dissolution Honours List.[1]
Ian McCartney
Early life[edit]
He was born in Lennoxtown, Stirlingshire,[2] to future Labour MP for East Dunbartonshire Hugh McCartney and his wife, Margaret, a trade unionist. McCartney had two sisters, Irene and Margaret.[3]
Educated at Lenzie Academy,[4] he left the school at the age of 15 "under a bit of a cloud" without any qualifications.[5] He led a paper-boys' strike at the age of fifteen,[6] and had a number of jobs after leaving school, including a seaman, a local government manual worker, and a kitchen worker.[7] He was a councillor for Abram ward in Wigan from 1982 to 1987.[8]
After Parliament[edit]
McCartney was chair of Healthwatch Wigan, resigning from the post in 2016.[23]
Personal life[edit]
He was married firstly to Jean (née Murray), with whom he had son Hugh and daughters Yvonne and Karen, later divorcing.[24] Hugh died aged 23 of a drugs overdose in 1999 in his flat in Parkhead.[25]
Hugh, known as "Shug",[26] had battled drug addiction since his teenage years. Only recently released from prison, he had been trying to break his habit.[27] In 2002, McCartney gave an interview to the Sunday Herald discussing his son's experiences in the justice system and how McCartney believed "the way we deal with addicts sentenced his son to death".[28] In 2003, McCartney stated in an interview he was still having break downs over the death of his only son.[29]
McCartney's second and current wife is Ann Kevan Parkes, whom he married in 1988.[24][27][30]