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Article: BIOGRAPHY Shirley Williams has turned her colourful life - both political and private - into a cosy one, laments Anthony Howard
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- September 13, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2009 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Climbing the Bookshelf
By Shirley Williams
VIRAGO, pounds 20, 416 pp
There was a time when the author of this autobiography looked
destined to become the country's first woman prime minister. The
lines of Shirley Williams's political career had certainly fallen in
pleasant places. Elected to parliament in 1964 at the age of 34, she
became a parliamentary private secretary that same year, rising to
be a junior minister at the old Ministry of Labour when she was 36
and gaining promotion to be a minister of state first at the
department of education and then at the Home Office well before she
was 40.
First voted on to the Shadow Cabinet in 1970 (and topping the
poll in 1972), she was on ...