About the Book: Battle Axe: A Memoir
Born in Alexandria in 1944 to Jewish parents from Germany and Austria, Margaret
arrived in England aged four stateless, foreign, and an outsider. Those origins
shaped everything. Her grandmother was murdered by the Nazis. Her grandfather
was greeted as an enemy alien and then interned on British soil. Anti-racism was
written into Hodges DNA.
So was the instinct to battle back.
Over more than fifty years as an elected representative councillor, council
leader, MP and minister she fought on every front. Against the old guard of the
Labour right and the bullying hard left. Against