Obituary: Jo Cox

choi

Star Turn; Jo Cox, the first British MP to be murdered since 1990, died on June 16th, aged 41. Economist, June 26, 2016.
http://www.economist.com/news/ob ... ck-her-constituency

Note:
(a) "she found Cambridge daunting: it mattered so much how you talked and whom you knew. Other undergraduates had posh professional parents and had taken sunny gap years. Her only foreign travel had been package holidays in Spain, with summers spent packing toothpaste in the factory where her father worked; indeed she had assumed, until school pointed its head girl farther afield, that she would spend her life working there."
(i) Jo Cox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Cox
(1974 – 2016; born Helen Joanne Leadbeater; studied Social and Political Sciences at Pembroke College, [Univ of] Cambridge, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1995; was married to Brendan Cox)
(A) Pembroke College was founded by Marie de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke and widow of the Earl of Pembroke (Aymer de Valence).
(B) Pembroke, Pembrokeshire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pembroke,_Pembrokeshire
(former county town of Pembrokeshire [the current one is Haverfordwest]; birthplace of Henry Tudor; section 1.1    Toponymy)
(ii) The English surnames Leadbeater/ Ledbetter is "for a worker in lead, Middle English ledbetere, from Old English lead lead + the agent noun from [verb] beatan to beat."
(iii) posh (adj; early 20th century): "British typical of or belonging to the upper class"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/posh
(iv) package holiday (n): "holiday organized by a travel agent, with arrangements for transport, accommodation, etc, made at an inclusive price"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... y?q=package+holiday

The en.wikipedia.org says it is also known as package tour, package vacation.
(v) Her father, first name Gordon, worked in a toothpaste factory located at City of Leeds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeds
(in West Yorkshire; section 1.1 Toponymy)

* Yorkshire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire

is historic (no longer extant), was divided into modern shires: North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire.
(vi)
(A) head girl (n): "a senior female student who is chosen to represent her school"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/head-girl
(B) head girl and head boy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_girl_and_head_boy
("He or she may also be expected to lead fellow prefects in their duties")

* prefect (n; etymology): "chiefly British (In some schools) a senior pupil who is authorized to enforce discipline"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/prefect
(vii) This Economist quotation came from

Kate Proctor, 'I've been in some horrific situations' - MP. Yorkshire Post, Dec 26, 2015
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/i-v ... ations-mp-1-7642788
("I never really grew up being political or Labour. It kind of came at Cambridge where it was just a realisation that where you were born mattered. That how you spoke mattered... who you knew mattered. I didn't really speak right or knew the right people. I spent the summers packing toothpaste at a factory working where my dad worked and everyone else had gone on a gap year! To be honest my experience at Cambridge really knocked me for about five years")

choi

(b) "For all her brains and charm, Cambridge jolted her confidence—setting her back five years, she said."

brain (n):
"2 intellectual capacity <I didn't have enough brains for the sciences>
[MASS NOUN]: <success requires brain as well as brawn>
2.1 (the brains) informal  a clever person who supplies the ideas and plans for a group of people <Tom was the brains of the outfit>"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/brain

(c) "She commuted to the House of Commons by bicycle, from the [Thames] houseboat she shared with her husband and two young children, its view of Tower Bridge the only luxury she allowed herself to enjoy."
(i) Use images.google.com for (jo Cox houseboat).
(ii) Tower Bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Bridge

(d) "Andrew Mitchell, her Conservative co-chair of the all-party Friends of Syria group. He called her a 'five-foot bundle of Yorkshire grit' * ** She and her Tory counterpart would text each other across the floor of the House of Commons, oblivious to the baying partisanship that raged about them."
(i) all-party (adj): "[ATTRIBUTIVE] British involving all political parties <the measure received all-party support>"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/all-party

In US, it is the adjective "bipartisan."
(ii) bay (vi):
"1 (of a dog, especially a large one) bark or howl loudly <a jackal baying at the moon>
1.1 (of a group of people) shout loudly, typically to demand something <the crowd bayed for an encore>"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/bay

(e) "she nominated the left-wing no-hoper, Jeremy Corbyn, for the party leadership"

no-hoper (n): "informal a person who is not expected to be successful"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/no-hoper

(f) "Though Westminster and Whitehall are tightly guarded, British politicians have scant protection when they venture outside. Only a handful of senior ministers have police bodyguards. Constituents wanting to meet their representatives simply make appointments for their regular surgeries (advice sessions)—or, as in the case of Mrs Cox's assailant, wait outside in the street."
(i) surgery (politics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgery_(politics)
(in British and Irish politics; "in much the same way that a person may directly consult a GP [general practioner] in his or her surgery (a 'surgery' being the term for the GP's workplace, an 'office' in American parlance")
(ii) surgery (n; etymology):
"2 British a place where a doctor, dentist, or other medical practitioner treats or advises patients.
2.1 [IN SINGULAR] A period of time during which patients may visit a doctor, dentist, or other medical practitioner for treatment or advice <Doctor Bailey had finished his evening surgery>
2.2 an occasion on which an MP, lawyer, or other professional person gives advice"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/surgery
(iii) American and Taiwanese politicians are the same -- all by themselves. In the fall 2014 US senator Ed Markey left his office with two male aides (all more than 60 years old), took the elevator down to have a lunch outside his Boston office. I had been waiting for the elevator, having just left his office for constituency service (unsuccessfully).  His group and I did not interact (it was not as if I would buttonhole him for help; I have pride).