Ms Kate Hoey, a sports fanatic and former Northern Ireland champion high jumper, has been quick off the blocks in her new job as Britain's first woman Minister for Sport.
The lively MP, of Ulster Protestant stock, this week stepped into the controversy over former sprint champion Linford Christie's positive drug test by calling for Britain's sports drug-testing authority to review its procedures.
And she lost no time following her appointment to Mr Tony Blair's cabinet last week in criticising Manchester United for opting out of the FA Cup - a stance that distanced her from her Belfast-born predecessor, Mr Tony Banks. Ms Hoey accused the team of treating fans shabbily and said it was imperative that it should play in next season's FA Cup. Mr Banks had earlier persuaded the team to play in the World Cup Championship, which led to its withdrawal from the FA Cup.
A fit and energetic 53-year-old, Ms Hoey has long been outspoken about sport, taking a tough stance as a junior minister against soccer thuggery by challenging players and managers to do more to counter hooliganism.
She has also spoken her mind on Northern Irish issues, including criticising calls for the disbandment of the RUC last year. A fervent unionist, Ms Hoey counts among her friends the former Conservative prime minister Mr John Major and the ex-Tory leader of the House of Lords Viscount Cranborne who was once dubbed the greatest enemy of the peace process by the Sinn Fein leader Mr Gerry Adams.
Ms Hoey was, until recently, a supporter of the leader of the UK Unionist Party, Mr Bob McCartney. They parted ways politically when Mr McCartney opposed the Belfast Agreement while Ms Hoey campaigned on behalf of the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, for a Yes vote in last year's referendum.
Ms Hoey's interest in the North is longstanding, and she has long campaigned for the Labour Party to organise here. In an article she wrote in the Belfast Telegraph last year, she said that when she had worked as parliamentary private secretary she had seen how Northern Ireland was marginalised from real policy making "by little things like its omission from civil servants' maps outlining the impact of various options on different parts of the country". She is seen as centre-right, but was once a hard-left student radical and was arrested, but not charged, for holding a protest meeting in Whitehall against the Bloody Sunday killings of 14 civilians in Derry in 1972.
An Arsenal supporter who often wears a track suit and running shoes around Westminster, Ms Hoey's appointment ends a 10-year ambition to be the first woman Minister for Sport. She is a member of Surrey county cricket club, remains a regular runner and rock-climber, and made her maiden speech in 1989 on football.
Born Catharine Letitia in Mallusk, Co Antrim, where her parents still have a 24-acre farm, Ms Hoey was educated at Belfast Royal Academy, where she was a house captain, and the Ulster College of Physical Education.
She has an economics degree from the City of London College and worked as a PE teacher and an educational adviser to young players at Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea football clubs during the 1980s.
Ms Hoey has been MP for Vauxhall since a by-election in 1989. She lives with her partner, photographer Tom Stoddart, whom she met at the World Cup in Mexico in 1970. Ms Hoey was made a junior Home Office minister last year, being pipped to the post of Sports Minister by Mr Banks. She is a popular figure with all sides of the House of Commons and her "sparky personality and easy laugh" prompted Mr Kinnock to nickname her Ho Ho Ho Hoey.
