Harriet Jones

For the Pete's World individual, see President Harriet Jones.

"There's an act of Parliament banning my autobiography."

- Harriet Jones

Harriet Jones was a British politician in the early 21st Century who served from 2006 till 2008 as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Jones helped the Ninth Doctor fight the schemes of the alien family known as the Slitheen. (DW: Aliens of London/World War III) Later, as Prime Minister, she and the Tenth Doctor faced the Sycorax.(DW: The Christmas Invasion)

Jones was a modest and intelligent middle-aged woman who had served her community faithfully for years without any real ambition beyond that. However, she was able to adapt quickly to the reality of the Slitheen threat, and took to the role of leadership easily, proceeding to reassure the public at the end that the crisis was over.

Jones always introduced herself by flashing her identity card and saying, "Harriet Jones, MP, Flydale North." She explained that this was because her constituency is a "tiny little place" and people would not know about it. Later, as Prime Minister, she continued to flash her card and say, "Harriet Jones, Prime Minister," to which people (including the Sycorax leader and a trio of Daleks) would invariably respond that they knew who she was. She later modified her introduction to say "Harriet Jones, Former Prime Minister", flashing her passport.

A running joke throughout the series is whenever she does this, everyone (including the Daleks) responds "Yes, we know who you are".

Early Career
Harriet Jones was an unassuming career backbencher, serving the constituency of Flydale North, who happened to be at 10 Downing Street when an alien spacecraft crash-landed in the River Thames in 2006. She was there to discuss plans for the Flydale Infirmary in her "tiny little" constituency. She soon discovered that the Cabinet had been infiltrated, and that the Acting Prime Minister, Joseph Green, was actually one of the Slitheen family in disguise (DW: Aliens of London).

When the Doctor arrived at Downing Street to consult on the crash, she tried to warn his companion Rose Tyler of what was happening, but the two were pursued by the unmasked aliens. Eventually she was trapped together with the Doctor and Rose in the Cabinet Rooms and aided the Doctor in determining the Slitheen's weaknesses. As the only elected representative present, Jones gave the Doctor the order to launch a Harpoon missile at Downing Street, killing the Slitheen before they could trigger off a nuclear war. Jones, the Doctor and Rose survived thanks to the reinforced steel walls of the cabinet rooms. The Doctor told Rose that Jones was destined to be a future Prime Minister, elected for three successive terms, and the architect of Britain's Golden Age. (DW: World War Three)

Premiership
During Jones' tenure, she presided over the launch of the Guinevere One space probe launched by the British Rocket Group and the extension of a Cottage Hospital scheme nationwide. Also her economic plan allowed people to be £18 pounds a week better off, according to Jackie Tyler. It was the space programme that led to her being faced with an alien invasion by the Sycorax. Although the invasion was averted by the Doctor, Jones ordered the covert Torchwood Institute organisation to shoot down the retreating Sycorax ship. (DW: The Christmas Invasion)

Furious with Jones, the Doctor warned her he could bring her down with just six words, which he whispered to her aide: "Don't you think she looks tired?" Soon she was fending off rumours of ill-health and was facing a vote of no confidence (DW: The Christmas Invasion). Her government was damaged and she lost power to Harold Saxon in the 2008 election, as she was indicated as being PM on Saxon's campaign website. Nevertheless, she stuck to her beliefs that the Earth needed self-defense from alien invasion. (DW: The Stolen Earth).

Thus the Ninth Doctor's account of Harriet Jones' career was significantly altered by the Tenth Doctor's direct intervention. While she did win initial election as prime minister, and Jackie Tyler remarked that her reign was thought of as a "golden age", she apparently died in relative isolation as a one-term former Prime Minister.

Later life
After leaving office, Jones continued to work behind the scenes in devising ways to protect the earth from alien intrusion, should the Doctor ever become unavailable. With the help of the Copper Foundation (possibly connected to "Mr. Copper", a man the Doctor once met in space (DW: Voyage of the Damned), she developed the subwave network, an intuitive system intended to seek out via computer anyone who has had extensive dealings with the Doctor. Jones later used the Subwave Network to contact Sarah-Jane Smith; Captain Jack Harkness and Torchwood; and Martha Jones; an attempt to contact Donna Noble failed although her mother and grandfather, as well as Rose Tyler, were able to view the communication. She got them to pool their resources (Mr Smith; The Cardiff Rift and Martha's Phone, respecitvely) to send a signal to call the Doctor. However in doing so she allowed the Dalek's to trace her signal and a squad of Daleks were sent to exterminate her. She remained defiant in her last moments, holding up her ID card saying "Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister". She said that the Daleks would face their downfall in underestimating the Human race. The Daleks then exterminated her. (DW: The Stolen Earth)

Parallel Earths and Timelines
In Pete's World, Harriet Jones became President of Great Britain after the previous incumbent was killed by the Cybermen. (DW: Doomsday, referencing the events of Rise of the Cybermen)

The fact the Ninth Doctor indicated that Jones was destined to serve three successive terms could suggest that an alternate timeline exists in which she did just that. Judging from the Doctor's inability to quickly recall her during the Slitheen crisis, this long-serving version of herself had little direct contact with that incarnation of the Doctor. Whether her absence from the political scene in the wake of the Tenth Doctor's act of vengeance was significant enough to have created an entirely different universe is a matter as yet unexplored.
 * Given her death in The Stolen Earth, and the Doctor's explanation of what he can and can't change in The Fires of Pompeii, it's entirely possible that Harriet Jones' premiership was not a "fixed" point in time and could therefore be altered. Like the nature of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, the exact details of the last moments of the planet Earth in the year 5,000,000,000, the lives of countless beings unlucky enough to be in one of the Doctor's many battles, the course of Harriet Jones' premiership was somewhat "optional" to the course of history.   Perhaps her sacrifice, confirmed in Journey's End'', was one of the "fixed" points in her life, whereas the shape of her political career wasn't.