Gang Of Less Than Four

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I nearly literally bumped into her a couple of years ago - I had to walk through the protests against Trump's visit to London and she was in amongst it, outside Parliament. I'd attempt a weak gag about her being in the middle of the road but she wasn't really, she was on the pavement. I remarked to my work colleague thst she looked in decent health for her age (Williams, not her) but she didn't know who she was.

[treibeis]

I think the ‘...vomit, excuse me!’ part was supposed to rhyme with ‘muesli’ and thereafter it kind of went a bit off-piste. Likely differs in various versions.

That reminds me of a crap joke of mine from years ago: ‘Q: How could you tell the main members of Squeeze apart? A: Chris differed.

Which, when you think about it, doesn’t even make sense.

It's coming back to me now:
"Ever had a multiple orgasm? Yes, it made me sick.
I once had a hamster, but I killed it with a brick."

[Duncan Gardner]

My Ma met Owen when he'd just been promoted to Foreign Sec (and thus her boss). "An ill-mannered young man" was the verdict.

His predecessor Tony Crosland died young in office, not least as he was probably the worst behaved drunk in Parliament. He and DHSS supremo Dick Crossman had a party trick at office dos, lying on the floor giggling and leering at passing women

[ursus arctos]

Williams spent a year at the other Cambridge between her stints in Parliament and I got to chat with her a couple of times

She was very pleasant on a personal level and incredibly different than the US politicians who cycled through there before or since. She even managed to convince 19 year old me that a third party had a real chance in the UK, which is a bit embarrassing in retrospect.

RIP

[Logan Mountstuart]

My Tory Mum once said in the 70s that her and David Ennals were the only Labour Ministers she respected. Not sure if that was a compliment.

I will compliment my mum though, by the last election aged 87 she had come full circle and openly voted for Corbyn. I heard my dad didn't speak to her for days.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Williams spent a year at the other Cambridge between her stints in Parliament and I got to chat with her a couple of times

She was very pleasant on a personal level and incredibly different than the US politicians who cycled through there before or since. She even managed to convince 19 year old me that a third party had a real chance in the UK, which is a bit embarrassing in retrospect.

RIP

She was my MP when I was a teenager, and the first I had any contact with. Owing to internal county rivalries and resentments, students in the program I was in were refused council grants when they were entitled to them. I was delegated/asked/had my arm twisted to go and talk to Shirley Williams, as it was felt she'd have a bigger stick to threaten Herts County Council with than Stevenage College would. So I did, and she did. Came through within a couple of weeks after months of stalling. I remember her bundled up in an overcoat and what seemed the longest scarf I'd ever seen in an empty store in Stevenage Town Centre. She was very friendly but brisk and to the point. I supposed she reassured this somewhat cynical teenager that sometimes the system really can work like it's supposed to. RIP Shirl.

The only curiosity I recall is that, as a teenager, she auditioned for the lead in the film National Velvet. Unfortunately she lost out to another girl named Elizabeth Taylor.

[Diable Rouge]

And rather appropriately, the Lib Dems featured as a specialist subject on Mastermind tonight.

[wingco]

By all accounts she was brilliant, kind, resourceful, sincere, courageous formidable and as a politician carried a heft and integrity that is far less evident these days, across all parties.

And she formed the SDP. Predicated on the "Third Way" fallacy that has persistently failed in British politics, the idea that Labour in the UK have been so extreme as to need counterbalancing. The SDP evaporated to literally zero, as did ChangeUK later but still there is a hankering among centrists and the commentariat, who pine for radical change but viscerally loathe the left, for this magical, illusory "third way". Still, RIP for all that. She was clearly inspirational in other ways.

[ursus arctos]

Exactly right

National Velvet would have been a rather different film with young Ms Williams and likely one I would have been rather more interested in watching

[Amor de Cosmos]

Shirl at that time...

[San Bernardhinault]

The horse is smaller in that pic than the one Lizzie Taylor had.

[Sits]

It's coming back to me now:
"Ever had a multiple orgasm? Yes, it made me sick.
I once had a hamster, but I killed it with a brick."

Rum-te-toodle pina colada
Half a pound of muesli
What do you think of Shirley Williams
I want to go to the toilet

Ah, memories.

[ursus arctos]

She has a disconcerting resemblance to my mother (who was less than eight years older and nowhere near as well off)

[NickSTFU]

I remember her for speaking out against Same Sex Marriage.

But, I never met her.

[Satchmo Distel]

She contradicted herself often, as is typical for someone who was both a liberal and a devout Christian born in 1930, but seemed to do so from a sincere position rather than the bad faith of Blair and Starmer. Her religion dictated her position on same sex marriage and she tied herself in intellectual knots trying to square it with the concept of freedom.

[Reality Checkpoint]

My memory of her was the time she came to our grammar school in Letchworth to talk to us spotty fifth-formers about the benefits of comprehensive education. She was very impressive and probably formed the basis of my political ideas more than any other politician of that time.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

(9) Paul Johnson on Twitter: "-Education Minister 1967 -Education Minister 2021 https://t.co/PHFwCvorTT" / Twitter

[Satchmo Distel]

The list of past office holders ranges in virtue from Ellen Wilkinson to Michael Gove, via Thatcher and Kenneth Baker. Every one from the last 11 years has disgraced the office but the Tories had been sabotaging universal education ever since it started, and Blairism was an insult to the legacy of Wilkinson and, maybe, Williams.

[Gerontophile]

Williams spent a year at the other Cambridge between her stints in Parliament and I got to chat with her a couple of times

She was very pleasant on a personal level and incredibly different than the US politicians who cycled through there before or since. She even managed to convince 19 year old me that a third party had a real chance in the UK, which is a bit embarrassing in retrospect.

RIP

Hang on: it does. The SNP are a viable option in parts of the UK.

[sw2borshch]

Surely the SNP are the first party in those parts of the UK?