Straight Talk - BBC News 24 22:30pm
Andrew Neill Interviews Dame Shirley Williams
Dame Shirley Williams, former cabinet Minister, one of the gang of four who set up the Social Democrats, now a Liberal Democrat peer in the House of Lords. Also a controversial figure as she is extreamly proud in her role pushing the Comprehensive school system, a truimph to most on the left, a disaster to most on the right.
We begin with Dame Shirley's early life. Her mother was a feminist and a Labour activist. Shirley stated it was her who inherited her mothers political passions, apprently her brother had little interest and in what little he did have, he tended to side with the Conservatives.
She went to the United States during the war and spent time in Minnesota. She states in that part of the USA in the 40's there was virtually no class system, she believes this is where her passion for Comprehensive education came from as she came to dislike the class system in the UK, and saw a classless education system as key to changing this.
Dame Shirley joined the Labour party at 16 and eventually became an MP. She states she encountered little sexism in her early life and does not consider herself on a feminist mission. Eventually she became a Cabinet Minister and was passionate about pushing Tony Crossland's comprehensive school agenda on.
She stated she is proud of pushing this. Then she encountered the weakest point of the interview, she said she regretted that this had become a political football in England, and pointed to Scotland, where it was less so, as the true triumph of comprehensivism. Andrew Neill is a Scot who knows plenty about he Scottish system. He pointed out Scottish results had risen recently, in line with a huge increase in private education, and the two biggest universities in Scotland, Edinburgh and ST Andrews, were dominated by priviately educated pupils. During this part of the interview Dame Shirley was on the defensive, her critics will argue this is proof the Comprehensive argument does not stand up to scrutiny.
They move on to her leaving the Labour Party after the 1979 election. She stated 3 reasons, the Labour Party were becoming anti EEC (now the EU) which she was not, they wanted to leave NATO which she was against, and the left wanted MP's to be accountable to the party not the electorate. She pointed out it is amusing how some of these people parade themselves as great parliamentarians because they oppose the party whip today, when they used to condemn those who did so back then.
She stated she believed it took the Derek Hatton issue in Liverpool before Neil Kinnock saw what was required, and even then it was another 10 years before the battle to move the party back to sense was won. She does not regret not going back to Labour at that point.
Dame Shirley confimred she would be available to advise the Governemnt on issues that go beyond party politics in her view, as long as she retained her independence. She would advise the Government on nuclear issues as long as certain conditions about the direction of policy were met, but this would mean a commitment to eliminate neuclear weapons at the earliest opportunity.
We finish with Dame Shirley admitting her weakness was her love of detail and taking on too much. She accepts Neill's premise that this may have cost her the chance to be Britain's first female PM instead of Margaret Thatcher.
