British ex culture secretary Tessa Jowell dies at 70

DANICA KIRKA
INTERNATIONAL.- Tessa Jowell, the former British culture secretary who played a key role in securing the 2012 London Olympics and used her own cancer diagnosis to campaign for better treatment, has died. She was 70.

Jowell died peacefully at the family home in Warwickshire, England on Saturday evening, her family said in a statement released Sunday.

Jowell, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor last year, remained a member of the House of Lords and used the platform to call for improved informationsharing and better access to medical care.

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Her memorable speech in Parliament moved her peers to tears. “In the end, what gives a life meaning is not only how it is lived, but how it draws to a close,” she said in January, with a shawl around her shoulders and her head covered by a skull cap.

“I hope that this debate will give hope to other cancer patients, like me, so we can live well together with cancer — not just dying of it. All of us — for longer”.

While politicians of all affiliations offered tributes and praise for Jowell’s courage and her championing of programs like Sure Start children’s centers as a government minister, it was her work on the Olympics that gave her a profile with the general public. Having pushed the British government to bid for the Olympics, her joy on securing the games for London was short-lived.