Dame Shirley Porter
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 28 April 1991
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is Dame Shirley Porter, who, as Lady Porter, was the flamboyant leader of the ruling Conservative Group at Westminster City Council - a post she held from 1983 until she stepped down in April 1991. She'll be telling Sue Lawley about what it was that made her go into politics at the age of 40, about her campaign for cleanliness on the streets of the capital and about her plans for the future.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: The Ode To Joy (Symphony No 9) by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: SAS Survival Manual Luxury: Large Swiss Army knife
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 1991, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is one of local government's most colourful politicians. |
| 0:36.0 | Brought up in Finchley, the daughter of a grocer, her crusade against waste and her indefatigable energy |
| 0:41.9 | invite comparisons with another distinguished woman of our age. |
| 0:45.0 | But my castaway didn't take up politics until she was 40. |
| 0:49.0 | When tired of running her local golf clubs, she was a captain five times, charities and community projects, she |
| 0:55.0 | stood for the council. |
| 0:56.9 | Nine years later she was its leader and set on a campaign of cutting down its committees, |
| 1:01.5 | privatizing its services, and literally cleaning it up. |
| 1:05.6 | She's the enemy of the Little Outs, the champion of the Superlou, the former leader of Westminster |
| 1:10.1 | City Council, Lady now Dame Shirley Porter. The former leader by a matter of days, |
| 1:16.4 | Dame Shirley, what's it like being out of office? |
| 1:18.4 | Well, actually you might think that it was going to be quieter but I've found that the buildup to |
| 1:23.9 | getting rid of one life moving into another exceptionally complicated and |
| 1:27.8 | really quite exhausting because I'm going to become the Lord Mayor or |
| 1:32.0 | May the 22nd and it seems to be part of my own character |
| 1:36.2 | that if I get involved in something then I can't help it. I start to think well what can you do |
| 1:40.9 | with the Lord Mayorality, what are the important things in the city and what should you do with the law of morality what are the important things in the |
| 1:43.3 | city and what should I do and of course all of this really gets you involved in a whole |
| 1:47.9 | other set of new priorities and new interests but why have you stepped down however powerful you seek to make that role why have you stepped down, however powerful you seek to make that role, why have you stepped down from real power, loose the reins of real power? |
| 1:58.0 | You didn't have to, you just set a low poll tax when you were setting poll taxes. |
... |
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