Her political work was rewarded when she became the candidate for Thurrock when in 1776 a by election was called upon Hugh Delargy's death. She won the by election and held the seat for a decade until she lost to the Tim Janman, a Right Wing Conservative. By coincidence in 1992 the seat was won for Labour by Andrew Mackinlay, now the Chairman of the Gibraltar Parliamentary Group. Dr McDonald, upon entry to the House was appointed a member of the Employment Select Committee and in 1977 was appointed PPS to Joel Barnett, Chief Secretary, Treasury. I enjoyed Parliamentary life because of the continual change.
Every day brings either something new or a new angle to an old subject.
When I decided to enter politics I marked out very clearly the interests and issues I wanted to cover. These were in central treasury sphere and so when I became a candidate I started to learn about these areas. One lesson learned from unsuccessfully contesting the seat in the industrial north of Bristol was that if I was to make any headway in politics, in particular as I am a woman coming from a background in education, then I had better understand how the economy, public expenditure and taxation works. These are subjects avoided, in the main, by my fellow politicians. The Parliamentary system and how Parliament works is not a difficult system to understand.