In April, one of my political heroes, Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby, gave an interview for my website www.politicsjunkie.co.ukWith the LibDem conference in full swing, I have decided to republish that interview here on the blog. As you would expect, Shirl the Girl talks sense from beginning to end.
Part 2
One area where the government has been uncharacteristically slow to legislate is reform of the house of Lords. Since the proposals brought forward by Robin Cook in 2002 found no consensus in the Commons, the second chamber has been in a sort of limbo.
The recent scandals over peerages-for-sale has prodded the government into action, with an assurance that MPs will be given a free vote and Tony Blair indicating he will concede to an elected second chamber.
Baroness Williams has a very clear idea of how she wants the Lords to be selected:
"What I would really like is an 80% elected house with a long term – probably not renewable, maybe 10 years, elected by PR from the regions. But with a system like a multi-member constituency system – which allows the public to make the choice but not the party, in other words not a party list system."
She thinks she will get half of what she wants:
"I think we may well get the 80%, I think the government is likely to give in to a democratic element to the Lords. I think we are unlikely to get PR as the government gets scared anytime it goes near PR because you might just get a just voting system. And that would never do."
Williams left front-line British politics in 1988 and moved back to academia. She married for a second time, to Harvard academic Richard Neustadt, and moved to the United States, as Public Service Professor of Elective Politics at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University from 1988 and also lecturing in Princeton, Berkley and Chicago.
When we talk about the current tide of anti-American sentiment in the UK, it is clear Williams relishes her time in the States. She is sanguine about the current British distaste for America:
"Anti-Americanism is made up of two things – a very unattractive aspect of some of the older and posher groups in society, resenting America just for being big and successful, lively and exciting.
"On top of that there is a different kind of resentment, much more justified in my view, largely directed at the present administration. The US is beginning to change quite fundamentally and will never be again the kind of beacon of liberty that we thought of it as being in the 1940s.
"Roosevelt, Eisenhower, that whole period when America was deeply internationalist, deeply involved in the outside world, dominated by the civilised east coast intellectuals or west coast professionals.
"You now have the middle asserting itself, most of whom haven’t travelled abroad or if they have it is only on the briefest of visits. Most of them aren’t interested in abroad, know very little about abroad and they are becoming the dominant political force.
"They tend to be conservative, fundamentalist Christian and they are a very different ball game. A lot of Brits who have never been to Des Moines or Kansas City just don’t know that America and don’t like what little they do know about it. Even a change of president will not change that."
Returning from American academic life to British politics as a life peer with the title Baroness Williams of Crosby in 1993, she was Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2001 to 2004.
It is a mark of the love which the party have for this icon of the centre-left that her last speech at the Liberal Democrat party conference in autumn 2004 received an emotional standing ovation. She backed another well-loved figure, Sir Menzies Campbell, after Charles Kennedy stood down.
Williams insists the LibDems are back on an even keel, despite the rising concerns about Ming Campbell's recent performances in the Commons, notably at prime minister's questions:
"PMQ are a media silliness, real clown stuff. People watch PMQ in the same way they watch Rory Bremner, because it is a fun entertainment. It has got very little to do with real politics."
The mention of Ming leads Williams to a comparison with the new Tory leader - and criticism of the the press for reducing the debate to image and soundbite:
"We needed someone who could bring to bear a real degree of wisdom and judgment to matters, as Ming did to his credit over Iraq.
"Because of that people like the government and the foreign office treat him seriously. As they do not treat David Cameron seriously despite him being a brilliant performer at PMQ.
"Forgive me for saying this to you so sternly, but that is exactly the mistake the media make over and over again and that is why they are ruining politics."
Chastened, politicsjunkie asked Williams what made Ming the right choice, given that image is more and more important than substance in modern politics, whether the fault of the media or of politicians:
"Ming was the right choice and I was actually a sponsor of him. I think we needed an absolutely steady and reliable leader for a while against whom the press could not dig up anything.
"Ming is completely honest, completely devoted to his wife, most unlikely to be engaged in financial trickery. He is a good, upright Edinburgh man."
Williams' reasons reveal the depth of her political instincts, when one considers what happened to two of Ming's opponents for the leadership:
"Given that the media concentrates so much on personal weaknesses you really needed someone who that could not be alleged against."
As a representative of the media, image is everything to politicsjunkie - so what did the baroness make of the young pretender?
"We have to see - he is very attractive and obviously in the initial phase you get a reaction to him, which you would expect. He is the first good, exciting leader for some while for the Conservatives."
It is the threat from the far-right, more than the rise of green Conservatism, which has been occupying the chattering classes since the local elections. Williams asserts that comparisons with the 1970s are wide of the mark:
"The BNP are hardly a huge threat with 40 councillors - we are looking at a much smaller threat than in the 1970’s – there is no comparison at all.
"The National Front were very consciously racist, more than now, and it was stopped in its tracks by the extraordinarily courageous action of Edward Heath in sacking Enoch Powell.
"Enoch as you know went off to the UUWC (Ulster Unionists) and became a dud volcano.
"This time it's not just to do with race, an awful lot of it is to do with a feeling in some London boroughs and in certain parts of the Pennines that the government is not listening to them. "
Of the two things Shirley Williams is known for, one, the SDP, has been folded into a new political entity.
She still stoutly defends the other claim to fame, the comprehensive principle so closely identified with her as education secretary:
"In Scotland where the comprehensive system has been almost untrammeled by interventions from the centre you have got better results, more children staying on and this is a system which has been true throughout to the comprehensive ideal.
"In England and Wales they have become a political football and not been given the time and the peace and the support to settle down.
"It makes me very angry."
