Gloria De Piero is a British journalist and former politician. Since July 2020, she has presented her own programme on Times Radio on Friday mornings, and co-presented the Sunday morning political programme "G&T" alongside Tom Newton Dunn. Until June 2020, she co-presented Talkradio's Sunday morning political programme alongside Alexis Conran. A member of the Labour Party, she was first elected as Member of Parliament for Ashfield in 2010. She held positions in the shadow cabinet under the leadership of both Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn. This included being the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities between October 2013 and September 2015, and the Shadow Justice Minister between July 2017 and July 2019. She announced her decision to step down from politics at the same time as she quit the Labour frontbench in July 2019. Prior to her political career, she was the political editor of GMTV.
Early life
De Piero was born on 21 December 1972 in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England to Giorgio and Maddalena De Piero. Her parents are Italian immigrants who moved to the United Kingdom to work in Bradford's textile mills. Her father had a mental health crisis when she was around the age of nine. This resulted in him requiring admissions to psychiatric hospitals throughout her childhood. His mental health meant that he could not continue to work, and De Piero's mother gave up her job to look after him, and the family lived on benefits. She attended Yorkshire Martyrs Catholic College where she obtained five GCSEs, and Bradford College where she gained two D A Levels. During her youth, De Piero was a member of Socialist Organiser, and joined the Labour Party's student wing Labour Students at the age of 18. De Piero then studied sociology at the University of Central England and the University of Westminster and graduated with a first. She was involved in the Labour Students' campaign in 1996–1997 as one of its national officers based in London. After the 1997 general election which resulted in the Labour Party winning in a landslide, De Piero applied for several government positions including as a special adviser, parliamentary researcher, and at left-wing think tanks but failed to gain employment.
Media career
De Piero began her career in journalism as a researcher for ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby show. She then moved to the BBC where she worked at On the Record. While working at the BBC, she completed a master's degree at Birkbeck, University of London. From 2003 to 2010, she was the political editor for GMTV. On 2 June 2020, De Piero was announced as a presenter on the new Times Radio station. She presents her own show on Friday mornings, and co-presents the Sunday morning political show G&T alongside the former political editor of The Sun, Tom Newton Dunn.
Parliamentary career
In February 2010, De Piero resigned as GMTV's political editor to seek selection as the Labour candidate for the Ashfield constituency in the 2010 general election. The candidacy became vacant following the announcement that the constituency's Labour MP, former Defence SecretaryGeoff Hoon, would be stepping down at the election. On 21 March, she was selected as the party's candidate. De Piero was elected with a majority of 192 votes after a 17.2% swing to the Liberal Democrats. During her election campaign, it was reported that she had posed for topless photographs for a modelling agency at the age of 15. Three years later, an unnamed news agency attempted to buy the photographs on behalf of a national newspaper. It later emerged that The Mail on Sunday had purchased the photographs in 2010. De Piero issued a legal warning to the newspaper that she had been underage when the photographs were taken and the negatives were returned to her with an apology. In October 2010, Labour leader Ed Miliband appointed De Piero as a shadow culture minister. In the 2011 reshuffle, De Piero became Shadow Minister for Crime Prevention, and in 2013, she was promoted to the shadow cabinet as Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities. At the 2015 general election, De Piero held Ashfield with an increased majority of 8,820. In September 2015, De Piero was elected to the Labour Party's Conference Arrangements Committee with 109,888 votes. In new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's first shadow cabinet, De Piero was made Shadow Minister for Young People and Voter Registration, a new shadow cabinet-level role. She resigned her shadow cabinet position on 26 June 2016, among dozens of her colleagues, believing Corbyn could not lead the party to a general election victory. De Piero supported the UK remaining within the European Union in the 2016 UK EU membership referendum, and was present with Corbyn at the launch of the Labour In for Britain campaign. Approximately 70% of her constituents voted for the UK to leave the EU. She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Corbyn in the 2016 Labour leadership election. At the June 2017 general election, De Piero's majority in Ashfield fell to just 441 votes. The following month, she accepted a place in Corbyn's shadow front-bench team as Shadow Justice Minister. In the indicative votes on 27 March 2019, De Piero voted for Norway plus, and to a customs union with the EU. In July 2019, she resigned from the shadow front-bench and announced that she would not stand at the next general election. On 12 December 2019, she was succeeded as Member of Parliament for Ashfield, Nottinghamshire by the Conservative politician Lee Anderson, her former office manager.
Personal life
De Piero married James Robinson in 2012. Robinson was a media correspondent at The Guardian, media editor at The Observer and an employee at PR firm Powerscourt. He was the director of communications for former deputy leader of the Labour Party Tom Watson.
