Meta Ramsay, Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale

Who is Meta Ramsay, Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale?

Margaret Mildred "Meta" Ramsay, Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale is a Labour Party member of the House of Lords.

Educated at the University of Glasgow and the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Ramsay served in the British diplomatic service from 1969 to 1991.

A fluent Russian speaker she was a well-respected Case Officer with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. She served with distinction in Stockholm and in Helsinki where, as the SIS Head of Station, she was involved in the successful exfiltration of the former KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky.

A contemporary of Sir John Scarlett, the chief of SIS from 2004 to 2009, she was short-listed to succeed an earlier MI6 chief - Sir Colin McColl, though at that time, she lost out to Sir David Spedding, left the Service and moved into full-time politics.

She was foreign policy adviser to John Smith, Leader of the Labour Party from 1992–94, and was special adviser to Jack Cunningham, Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry 1994-95.

She was made a life peer as Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale, of Langside in the City of Glasgow on 11 October 1996. She is the Lords Chair of The Labour Friends of Israel.