Next week my company, Biteback , is publishing a book of essays to honour Shirley Williams, and mark the fact that she has just turned 80.If you're at the LibDem Conference on Monday (sadly I am not going this year!) Shirley will be doing a booksigning on the LibDem Image Stand at noon.
The contributors to the book include Peter Hennessy, David Owen, David Steel, Charles Kennedy, John Kampfner, Roger Liddle, Stephen Wall, Andrew Duff, Jeremy Greenstock, Ming Campbell, David Howarth, Helena Kennedy, Anthony King, John Lloyd, Jennifer Jenkins, Richard Harries, Clifford Longley, Robert Reich, Robert Skidelsky and Crispin Tickell.
This is not a book of essays saying how wonderful Shirley Williams is, but instead is a collection of insightful essays on subjects Shirley has been most interested in during her long political career.
There will also be one of my IN CONVERSATION interviews with Shirley in the conference issue of Total Politics.
You can buy the book HERE.
Thanks for the waring Iain, I'll stock up with eggs,tomatoes and old shoes.
ReplyDeleteAnd an absolute must for all insomniacs......
ReplyDeleteGiven how she wrecked the country's education system, I would have though a Tony Blair style egging was in order!
ReplyDelete"This is not a book of essays saying how wonderful Shirley Williams is."
ReplyDeleteI was going to say . . .
does she comment on how proud she is of destroying two generations (so far) educational opportunities with her ideological mania for the one size fits all comprehensive? she probably does, her glowing socialist self-righteousness being what it is. how sweet it must be for all these middle class technocrats to see the full glory of their achievements writ large.....with all the little people allocated to the procrustean averageness. mephistopheles said he was 'Part of that power which would
ReplyDeleteDo evil constantly and constantly does good'.......God save us from Shirley and her ilk who are the reverse.
"you see" (says shirley) "it was ok for me to go to a top public school and an elite university - just cant have the proles doing the same - for their own good of course"
ReplyDeletewhy is it i detest this woman's views so much ? i wonder ? perhaps because i was unlucky enough to be at school when she was in power.
best thing to do with this book is recycle it into loo roll. it would be the only useful thing that this woman has ever done in her whole political life
...a collection of insightful essays on subjects Shirley has been most interested in during her long political career.
ReplyDeleteA Festschrift, then?
Words fail me. Unfortunately they have not failed her.
ReplyDeleteShe is responsible for destroying the education of probably two generations and counting, probably a greater cause of Britain's decline than any other act of political vandalism.
ReplyDeleteI despair..........
Bloody hell Iain, is that woman still alive? She is an odious baggage who did enormous damage to education.
ReplyDelete