58 Facts About Luciana Berger

Luciana Clare Berger, Baroness Berger is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament for Liverpool Wavertree from 2010 to 2019, and a Member of the House of Lords since 2025.

Luciana Berger served as a National Executive Committee member of the National Union of Students, but resigned to protest against what she considered the committee's apathy towards antisemitism.

Luciana Berger joined Labour and served as director of Labour Friends of Israel.

Luciana Berger was re-elected in the 2015 and 2017 general elections.

Luciana Berger stood unsuccessfully for Finchley and Golders Green in the 2019 general election.

Luciana Berger was born in London and raised in Wembley, north-west London.

Luciana Berger is a great-niece of trade union official and Labour MP Manny Shinwell, who rose to be a Minister in the Ramsay MacDonald government and in the Attlee government, as Secretary of State for War in the latter.

Luciana Berger was of Polish Jewish descent, and was the last MP to throw a punch in parliament, after taking exception to a Conservative MP suggesting that he "get back to Poland".

Luciana Berger's mother, Antonia, is an interior designer and children's book writer, wrote a musical hit that made the French charts in the 1960s, and was a counsellor in a palliative care unit.

Luciana Berger's grandfather sold ladies' fashions from a market stall, and her brother is a professional musician.

Luciana Berger was educated at Haberdashers' School for Girls, a private school in Elstree, Hertfordshire.

Luciana Berger subsequently gained a degree in commerce with Spanish from the University of Birmingham in 2004.

Luciana Berger was named the University of Birmingham 2012 Alumna of the Year.

Luciana Berger spent a year studying at ICADE in Madrid, Spain.

Luciana Berger then took on on a part-time basis and completed a master's degree in government, politics and policy at Birkbeck, University of London.

Luciana Berger was a National Executive Committee member of the National Union of Students, Britain's main student representative organisation, serving as an elected member for two years.

Luciana Berger began her career with the management consultant Accenture in its government strategy Unit from 2005 to 2006, advising the UK Treasury and other parts of the UK government as to how to be more effective and efficient.

Luciana Berger then worked for the National Health Service Confederation as government and parliamentary manager, campaigning for the NHS within the government from 2006 to 2007.

Luciana Berger ran a non-profit campaigning and education organisation working with democratic socialists and trade unions for peace and security in the Middle East.

Luciana Berger was the director of Labour Friends of Israel from 2007 to 2010, and stepped down before the 2010 general election to stand in Liverpool.

Luciana Berger was a committee member of the London Jewish Forum, an organisation dedicated to the promotion of Jewish life in London, and stepped down when she was elected to parliament in 2010.

Luciana Berger was selected as prospective parliamentary candidate in early 2010 by the Liverpool Wavertree party.

Luciana Berger beat her nearest rival by a ratio of two votes to one.

On 31 October 2010, Luciana Berger appeared in a BBC Radio 5 Live show which featured among others Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of The Sun.

Luciana Berger responded to criticism on her Twitter feed, writing: "Was there for the MP bit with Amber Rudd, wasn't told before who the other guests were".

In March 2011, Luciana Berger launched a campaign to Save BBC Radio Merseyside, in response to proposals by the BBC to consider reducing locally produced content on their local radio network to cover only the breakfast and drivetime periods and syndicating Five Live during the daytime.

Luciana Berger spoke in support of allowing MPs to tweet in the House of Commons, during a debate on 13 October 2011.

Luciana Berger campaigned against food poverty, which she described as a "national scandal".

Luciana Berger was the first MP to secure a parliamentary debate on food banks, and brought the issue back to parliament more than 16 times.

Luciana Berger raised the issue in 2012, and subsequently raised the issue of loopholes allowing companies to avoid their health and safety responsibilities.

Luciana Berger argued that parliament has a responsibility to close those loopholes.

In 2015, Luciana Berger applied for selection as Labour Party candidate for the position of Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, but on 10 August 2016 failed to be selected.

Luciana Berger described receiving a 'torrent of anti-Semitic abuse' beginning from her selection as prospective parliamentary candidate and election as an MP.

Luciana Berger had to take security measures where she lived in Liverpool, and at her London home.

Luciana Berger has accused Twitter of insufficient action to counter the problem.

Luciana Berger has noted the "volume and toxicity of stuff that come[s] from the left for daring to speak out, for daring to address this" and that "people believe there is a place for anti-Semitism on the left".

In July 2018, Jack Coulson, a teenager obsessed with neo-Nazism and who allegedly had told an acquaintance that he was going to kill Luciana Berger, was jailed for eight-and-a-half months for possessing a document for terrorist purposes.

Luciana Berger had a past conviction for making a pipe bomb.

Luciana Berger focused in particular on the Green Investment Bank and the Green Deal, writing in the environment section of The Guardian about the need for a pro-environmental-business agenda.

In June 2011, Luciana Berger secured an amendment to the Energy Bill, the Green Deal apprenticeship programme.

Luciana Berger later criticised the Green Deal, saying in The Independent: "Because of sky-high interest rates, hidden charges and penalty payments, the reality for most people will be that the Green Deal ends up costing them more than they save".

On 8 October 2013, Luciana Berger was appointed Shadow Minister for Public Health following a frontbench reshuffle.

Luciana Berger had previously signed parliamentary motions in support of NHS funding for homeopathy.

Luciana Berger resigned from the post on 27 June 2016 in the mass resignation of shadow ministers from the Labour frontbench over concerns about Corbyn's leadership.

In July 2019, Luciana Berger was a founding member of a grouping of MPs called The Independents.

In July 2019, a spokesman for Luciana Berger said she had "no intention" of joining the Liberal Democrats.

When Jo Swinson was elected new Liberal Democrat leader in 2019, Luciana Berger was appointed the party's spokesperson for health, wellbeing and social care.

Luciana Berger was selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Greater London constituency of Finchley and Golders Green at the 2019 general election.

Luciana Berger made the decision to stand in the constituency because of its high Jewish population and the high proportion of its electorate who had voted to remain in the EU; she claimed she had more of an affinity towards living in London and she would be raising her children there, rather than in Liverpool.

On 1 July 2020, Luciana Berger became managing director of Advocacy and Public Affairs at public relations company Edelman UK, specialising in health, food and drink, climate change and energy policy.

On 10 October 2022, Luciana Berger was appointed as the CEO of iNHouse, a PR and lobbying firm based in Westminster.

In December 2024, it was announced that Luciana Berger would be made a Life Peer as part of the 2024 Political Peerages.

Luciana Berger was created Baroness Berger, of Barnhill in the London Borough of Brent on 6 February 2025.

Luciana Berger married Liverpool music manager Alistair Goldsmith at the city's Princes Road Synagogue in June 2015.

Luciana Berger denied that she had been involved in a relationship with Blair, but confirmed that she was once romantically involved with Umunna.

Luciana Berger was the girlfriend of ex-Labour MP and MEP Sion Simon in 2010.

Luciana Berger was shortlisted for the Grassroot Diplomat Initiative Award in 2015 for her campaign against food poverty, in which she had produced a film to highlight the growing concerns of some of her constituents reliant on food banks.

Luciana Berger became a vice president of the Jewish Leadership Council in June 2019.