Her father was a lorry driver who died when she was seven. Her mother was a secretary at Rowntree Mackintosh (now owned by Nestlé). She went to the Highlands School (now North Halifax Grammar School) in Illingworth, Halifax. She studied at Girton College, Cambridge, receiving a MA in Economics and History in 1981. From 1981-2, she worked as a journalist for the Parliamentary Weekly House Magazine. She went to the Graduate School of Journalism of the University of California Berkeley from 1982-3. She was researcher for Yorkshire Television from 1983-6, then a producer for BBC News and Current Affairs from 1986-9, then worked as a producer at the ITN Parliamentary Unit from 1989-92. She was the political correspondent of the Daily Telegraph from 1992-6 and social affairs editor of the Sunday Telegraph from 1996 until 1997.
Parliamentary career
Julie Kirkbride was the Conservative spokesman on Culture, Media and Sport from 2003 to 2004, but was replaced in a reshuffle by the party leader at that time, Michael Howard.
She was engaged to Conservative MP Stephen Milligan before his unusual death in 1994. In August 1997, she married Andrew MacKay MP, the Conservative Member for Bracknell, and they have a son, Angus Robert (born October 2000).
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