Mary Macleod

Mary Macleod (born 4 January 1969) is a British Conservative Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brentford and Isleworth from the 2010 general election until the 2015 general election, when she was defeated by Ruth Cadbury of the Labour Party. After a career in business consulting, Macleod was a policy advisor to Queen Elizabeth II. She graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in Ancient Greek, together with Business Studies.

Career On graduation, she joined Andersen Consulting and then Accenture, as a business consultant.

Political career Having unsuccessfully contested Ross, Skye and Inverness West at the 1997 general election, Macleod was elected as the Member of Parliament for the marginal seat of Brentford and Isleworth on 7 May 2010. However, the next day Miller resigned.

In July that year, she said there was a "bullying culture" in the House of Commons, and the behaviour of many male MPs was "off-putting to most women". Speaking in advance of the publishing of a report into female representation in Parliament, she suggested that reprimands from the Speaker for misbehaving MPs were "counter-effective", with some of them enjoying the attention.

Macleod was defeated in the 2015 general election by Ruth Cadbury of Labour by less than 500 votes. After the election, Macleod was appointed to a position advising the Secretary of State for Scotland, David Mundell.

In the snap 2017 general election, Macleod ran again as the Conservative candidate for Brentford and Isleworth, but lost by more than 12,000 votes, 20% of the vote.