London Jewish Cultural Centre
Ivy House, 94 -96 North End Road
£10 in advance, £12.50 on the door
join us for an evening of conversation with the Rt. Hon. Professor Shirley Williams.
Shirley Williams, Co-Founder of the Liberal Democratic Party and its first President 1982-88, served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2001 until retiring from that position in 2004. She is Professor Emeritus of Elective Politics at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and advises the Prime Minister on issues of nuclear proliferation.
Shirley Williams started her career as a journalist with the Daily Mirror (1952-54) and Financial Times (1954-58) and was General Secretary of the Fabian Society until her election as Labour MP for Hitchin (later Hertford and Stevenage) in 1964. She served in the British Cabinet (1974–79) as Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, Paymaster General and Secretary of State for Education and Science. Shirley lost the seat in 1979 but, after co-founding the Social Democratic Party in 1981 was its first elected MP winning a by-election in Crosby, Merseyside in the same year.
She became Baroness Williams of Crosby in 1993 and was spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats on Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the Lords from 1998 to 2001.
She is the author of several books including Politics is for People (1981) A Job to Live (1985), God and Caesar (2003) and her autobiography Climbing the Bookshelves (2009). She is the recipient of twelve honorary doctorates and a frequent broadcaster.
