Puertollano wrote:
NS Nation Name: Puertollano
Character Name: Barbara Stellar
Character Gender: Female
Character Age: 60
Character Height: 1.5m
Character Weight: 60kg
Character Position/Role/Job: MP for Bolsover (1992-Current)
Appearance: (Image)
Character model, for personal note: Victoria Treadell
Character Constituency of Origin: Hartlepool
Character Constituency of Residence: Bolsover
Character Party Affiliation: Labour
Main Strengths: Popular local member, symbiotic with working class.
Main Weaknesses: Past criticism over treatment of staffers, tenuous relationship with National Executive Committee.
Biography: Barbara Rhiannon Fairway was born in 1959 to her parents in a small council home in Hartlepool. Her father was a labourer at the port in Hartlepool, where he would unload shipments coming into the town. Her mother was a stay-at-home wife, like many women during that period. Both of her parents were both committed labour members, and also staunch socialists. This radical upbringing helped shape her beliefs that she continues to hold today. Barbara attended the local state-funded school, where she took up an interest in nursing and medicine. Following her initial years of schooling, Barbara went off to do nursing, where she found her passion. This took her to Bolsover, where the mining communities there were in need of more nurses, Barbara accepted and transferred to a hospital in Bolsover.
Although having been a member in the union (GMB), Barbara had never been much of an activist until she really settled into Bolsover. There she took part in union campaigns in 1982 against the Tory Government. It was during this same time span that Barbara met Nicolai Stellar, a Romanian-born miner in Bolsover. She first met him when he arrived at the hospital following a mining accident, where he fell over and broke his leg. Barbara was responsible for nursing him back to health. In a later interview, Barbara admits that she fell in love with him during that period, and so did he with her. Nicolai's family had escaped Romania during World War Two and he was brought up in an immigrant, working-class family. That working class background brought them together further. Together, they married in 1985. She took on his last name.
Feeling like she wanted a change of pace, Barbara convinced Nicolai to run for Council District election as a Labour candidate. He was successfully elected as one of the Labour councilors in Bolsover North West in 1987. She campaigned fervently on his behalf and Nicolai served as a socialist-leaning Labour councilor for many more local elections to come. Convinced as to her own campaigning capabilities, Barbara believed it was time she tried to run for political office. In 1991, at the age of 32, Barbara ran for the same council seat that her husband held after he retired at the end of two terms. Based off the political clout of her last name in the local area, as well as her strong union and nurses connections, she won. But her reign as councilor did not last long. Concerned with the direction of the country as a whole, Barbara ran for the riding of Bolsover. Despite a few pundits questioning her ability to win as a woman in a more socially conservative-minded seat, she was elected comfortably on a nation-wide Labour swing in 1992.
During her time in parliament, Barbara was known as a fiercely pro-worker candidate and a traditional working-class socialist. In 1994, Barbara came under some fire for the treatment of staffers in her office and many local newspapers used this information in an attempt to discredit her. According to sources in her own office, Barbara would sometimes burst into fits of rage over issues whether they be small or large. Although nothing was specifically noted, apparently her local office would also have to purchase new office chairs because they were broken. One staffer also told the media that she was concerned of 'New Labour' infiltrators into her office during and after the 1997 General Election. This would often lead to the sacking of many staffers for supposed allegiances to the right of the party, those who strongly supported Tom Blake.
This skepticism of New Labour brought her head-to-head with the Labour National Executive Committee, people she blasted as "yuppie conservatives". She would often vote against the government on some of the more neoliberal measures of the Tony Blair government, including voting against the Iraq War. Barbara was very supportive of Bennett being elected Labour leader in 2015, often going on national television on the lead up to the vote championing her cause. Due to this, she is considered one of her closest allies in the Labour Party. Barbara campaigned to leave the European Union in 2016 and has stringently opposed a second referendum at all costs. As of late, her bullish nature granted her the nickname of the "Babushka of Bolsover", but she is still very popular among her constituents.
I have read and accept the rules of the roleplay: Puertollano
Do Not Remove: 84721
Made the changes of Tony Blair to Tom Blake and for the nickname to be given later on.
