Gisela Stuart

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Gisela Stuart MP
Member of Parliament for Birmingham Edgbaston
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 May 1997
Preceded by	Jill Knight
Succeeded by	Incumbent

Born	26 November 1955 (1955-11-26) (age 54) Velden, Bavaria, Germany
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Religion	Roman Catholic

Gisela Gschaider Stuart (born November 26, 1955 as Gisela Gschaider) is the Labour Member of Parliament for Birmingham Edgbaston in the United Kingdom.

Stuart was born in Velden, Bavaria, Germany, raised in her parents' Roman Catholic faith. She moved to Britain in 1974, when she married her husband and relocated to the Midlands. In the 1997 general election, she won the Birmingham Edgbaston seat, which had been held by the Conservative Party for over seventy years. Her victory in the Labour general-election landslide of May 1, 1997 was the first televised seat to change hands on election night (Crosby was the actually first but it was not covered on TV). Stuart and her husband subsequently divorced.

Stuart was a junior health minister until 2001. In that election year she once accompanied Tony Blair on a televised visit to a Birmingham hospital, where Blair was confronted by Sharron Storer, a Birmingham resident whose partner was a cancer patient at the hospital. Storer related how the cancer unit could not find a bed for her partner, and demanded in front of the cameras that the government improve health services; some commentators speculated that Blair's embarrassment at this incident during the 2001 election campaign led to Stuart being dropped from the government. She sat on the European Convention's 13-strong presidium or steering group, but after the draft constitution was published, she stated that it had been drawn up by a "self-selected group of the European political elite" determined to deepen European integration.

In October 2004 she became the only Labour MP to openly support the re-election of George W. Bush in that year's US Presidential election, arguing "you know where you stand with George and, in today's world, that's much better than rudderless leaders who drift with the prevailing wind."[1].

She successfully held Birmingham Edgbaston for Labour at the 2005 General Election but her majority was exactly halved in both percentage and numerical terms.

She is a signatory of the Henry Jackson Society principles, which promote the spread of liberal democracy across the world and the maintenance of a strong military with global expeditionary reach.[2]