Dame Shirley Porter obituary (opens in new tab)

Former leader of Westminster city council found to have misused her powers in the ‘homes for votes’ scandalThere was a time in the late 1980s when Shirley Porter was the second most famous and powerful female politician in Britain: “the Iron Lady of the town halls”. Like her heroine, Margaret Thatcher, she was a grocer’s daughter, though the family business, Tesco, was somewhat bigger than the prime minister’s corner shop. Porter’s eventual fall from grace was devastating both for her persona...