I've just been reminded that on Question Time last week Shirley Williams said there was no chance Gordon Brown would offer her a job "because I'm a woman". When Dimbleby reminded her she'd been a Labour Cabinet Minister she responded that Gordon Brown was "no Harold Wilson or Jim Callaghan". Well that's a relief, I suppose.
This all reminds me of her comments in 1980, just before the formation of the SDP, when she said: "A centre party would have no roots, no principle and no values." Rather like Shirley Williams, then.
Amazing what a sniff of power can do, isn't it?
15 comments:
CHIPMONK FOR TRANSPORT! HuRRAh
And now we have 3 parties of the "centre". Looks like she got that bit right then.
Yes, the sniff of power.
Putting Shirl into non-proliferation will have one result:
The UK to give up nuclear weapons and power "to set an example to others".
That is precisely the kind of naive twaddle that is mothers' milk to Fibberall Dumboldtwats and the legion of self-loathers in the FCO and the Left in general.
Speaking of mother's milk...
Is Brown mad? How is 'Surly' Williams going to stop nuclear proliferation? Ten minutes in a room with her I'd want an A-Bomb!!
"A centre party would have no roots, no principle and no values."
Cameron's Conservatives?
I've always thought how similar Shirley Williams and Tony Benn were - patronising, elitist (in the worst sense of the word) and cunningly two-faced. Glad I got that off my chest.
"A centre party would have no roots, no principle and no values."
Wow, she predicted Cameron's Tories!!!
SHIRLEY WILLIAMS ON THE BOX NOW
Though I was a centre right Liberal and no fan of the gang of four, I neverthless respected Shirley Williams during my years as a reluctant Lib Dem.
So I was dismayed to see her make an idiot of herself on Question Time.
I'm sorry to have to say this Shirley, but at the age of 77 you have to accept that you've lost your cutting edge. You now have neither the intellectual agility nor clear headed judgement that you once had. While you can still cut it in the slow moving Lords,as an advisor to Brown you'd be horribly manipulated. Please don't destroy the wide respect in which in you are held for this.
Auntie Flo'
Why should she eat her words? She was right about Cameron.
Her husband was an amazing academic. I heard him lecture on the powers of the American president. Quite brilliant analysis!
It is an interesting role for Shirley Williams and could be the start of Browns first rift with the United States given her previous denounciations of the Bush administrations plans for missile defence:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=3655
She came across as a lofty fool on Question Times. The men were courteouslsy silent, marking time, while she sniffed her uppity disapproval and expressed her warm solidarity with islam, then the minute she shut her mouth, got back to rational arguments. I thought Peter Hitchens was superb. Who was the nonentity? (Don't say Boris Johnson.)
Her husband was an amazing academic
Which husband?
What do you have to do to be "an amazing academic"? Recite Homer in the Greek while doing figure eights on the ice rink? Teach advanced physics during the day and sing a leading role at Glynbourne by night? Discover a new planet one night and win the Toy Boy of the Year title in Cannes the next evening?
What is an amazing academic?
(Or maybe just be married to Shirley Williams and maintain your sanity is amazing enough.)
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