Edwina Currie (née Cohen; born 13 October 1946) is a British writer, broadcaster and former politician, serving as Conservative Party Member of Parliament for South Derbyshire from 1983 until 1997.

In September 2002, the publication of Currie's Diaries (1987–92) caused a sensation, as they revealed a four-year affair with colleague (and later Prime Minister) John Major between 1984 and 1988.

Currie's record as Junior Health Minister was heavily scrutinised in the 2010s, and to a lesser extent at the time, for her decision to hire Jimmy Savile as chairman of Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, where it is now known he molested and raped mentally unstable patients.

[1][2][3] Currie remains an outspoken public figure, with a reputation for being "highly opinionated,"[4] and currently earns her living as an author and media personality.

Currie studied philosophy, politics and economics at St Anne's College, Oxford, where she was taught by Gabriele Taylor.

[12] Currie was forced to resign as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health in December 1988, after she issued a warning about salmonella in British eggs.

[16] Long after the furore died down, in 2001, it was revealed that a covered-up Whitehall report produced months after Currie's resignation found that there had been a "salmonella epidemic of considerable proportions".

She appeared again two years later, in a special episode commemorating the release of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs, opposite fellow Liverpudlian (and Liverpool Institute alumnus) Derek Hatton.

During the 1992 general election campaign, Currie poured a glass of orange juice over Labour's Peter Snape shortly after an edition of the Midlands-based television debate show Central Weekend had finished airing.

In a speech in the House of Commons Currie said, "it is time to seize our homophobic instincts and chuck them on the scrapheap of history, where they belong".

Currie was MP for South Derbyshire for 14 years; however, along with many other Conservative MPs, she lost her parliamentary seat in the 1997 general election.

[22] After nearly a quarter of a century away from politics, it was announced in February 2021 that Currie would contest her home ward of Whaley Bridge on Derbyshire County Council at that year's local elections.

[25] Currie has written six novels: A Parliamentary Affair (1994), A Woman's Place (1996), She's Leaving Home (1997), The Ambassador (1999), Chasing Men (2000) and This Honourable House (2001).

She made a second appearance on the show during Channel 4's "Alternative Election Night" coverage, with Rod Liddle, Brian Paddick and Derek Hatton as her competitors.

[37] Currie's Diaries (1987–92), published in 2002, caused a sensation, as they revealed a four-year affair with John Major between 1984 and 1988, while both were married to other people.

[39] However, only weeks after revealing the affair, she publicly criticised Major, accusing him of sidelining female and black politicians and of being "one of the less competent prime ministers".

[40] The admission came after years of denial of any affair while in office and a successful libel action against playwright David Hare, who had said a sexually voracious murderer played by Charlotte Rampling in his film Paris by Night (1988) was an "Edwina Currie-like" figure.

"[41][42] In September 2004, Currie took part in a sponsored cycle ride across Poland, near to the area where ancestors of hers lived, for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

[49] As part of the 2009 TV Show Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Currie teamed up with Declan Donnelly and two other celebrities to release a cover version of the Wham!