{"id":604857,"date":"2025-12-01T07:43:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/604857\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T07:43:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:43:22","slug":"i-treated-it-like-a-project-that-required-a-solution-former-sdlp-leader-on-cancer-fight-hopes-for-the-future-and-a-career-with-no-regrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/604857\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I treated it like a project that required a solution\u2019: Former SDLP leader on cancer fight, hopes for the future, and a career with no regrets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom4 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">In 2010 Margaret Ritchie took over the leadership of the party she joined 30 years earlier.\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Former SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie at the St Patrick\u2019s Centre, in her home town of Downpatrick, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025.  Picture by Peter Morrison\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/a5834566-74c0-4011-9e66-7f267ad5d0c1.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Former SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie at the St Patrick\u2019s Centre, in her home town of Downpatrick, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025.  Picture by Peter Morrison<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Former SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie has said housing should be the number one priority for Stormont, saying a focus on it lapsed after the SDLP left the power-sharing Executive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">In a wide-ranging interview with the Belfast Telegraph, the member of the House of Lords chose housing and said her approach to it has been her greatest achievement, with the building of around 2,000 social homes each year \u2014 much higher than the current figure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2010 Margaret Ritchie took over the leadership of the party she joined 30 years earlier. Former SDLP&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[6571,1144,39255,925,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-604857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-andrew-madden","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-northern-ireland-assembly","11":"tag-sdlp","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115643195114072075","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}