On this day in ...... 1956, Catherine Ashton was born "to a working class family, with a coal mining background," in Upholland, Lancashire, England. The 1st in her family to attend university, she earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from a college in the University of London. Her subsequent career included work for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (prior posts) and other groups, as well as consulting for business and government. Since she was made a life peer, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, she's served as a Labour Party member in a number of official government posts. Leader of the House of Lords since 2007, she was responsible for passing the Lisbon Treaty through that body of Parliament. Today she is a key personage in the post-Lisbon: since last November she's served as the European Union's 1st-ever High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and she made her 1st visit to the Middle East this week. A recent article in El Pais indicates that to date her road has been a rocky one. (credit for December 2009 photo of EU Foreign Minister Ashton with her U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton)
(Prior March 20 posts are here, here, and here)
