Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 8, 2017

Bessie Braddock (1899–1970) was a  British  Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Liverpool Exchange division from 1945 to 1970. She was a member of Liverpool County Borough Council from 1930 to 1961. Although she never held office in government, she won a national reputation for her campaigns in connection with housing, public health and other social issues. Braddock supported the 1945–51 Attlee ministry's reform agenda, particularly the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. She served on Labour's National Executive Committee between 1947 and 1969. For most of her parliamentary career she was a member of Liverpool's council, and was a central figure in a controversy in the 1950s over the city's flooding of the Tryweryn Valley to construct a reservoir. When Labour won the 1964 general election she refused office on the grounds of age and health; thereafter her parliamentary contributions dwindled as her health worsened. Towards the end of her life she became Liverpool's first woman freeman. Her Guardian obituarist hailed her as "one of the most distinctive political personalities of the century".