Jennie Lee, Baroness Lee of Asheridge

Maiden speech, April 25, 1929 A miner's daughter from Fife, just elected for North Lanark at 24 and the youngest member of the House, went straight for the Chancellor in the Finance Bill debate. She called Winston Churchill's budget a mixture of cant, corruption and incompetence, and a Unionist who spoke later praised the speech as courageous, spirited, clever and dramatic. It set the tone for a left-wing career that later produced the Open University. It is the sharpest example here of a newcomer refusing the customary deference to the front bench.