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Hello and good afternoon. An impression of unity is important to all political parties,

but it's absolutely crucial for the STP liberal arts.

The late, the great Brian Walden, who died this week, the host of the brilliant current affairs

series Weekend World and of his own interview show, The Walden interview,

The HADME GRIPED week after week, a man who inspired me to want to be a political

interviewer. A man who believed in politics, he'd been a member of parliament,

a man who believed in the interview as a way to explore ideas, to expose contradictions,

to shine a light on what those in power might want to have remain in the shadows.

A man who showed the given half an hour or even longer, there was a lot you could discover

from a conversation. It might be the case that even private, you will have a lusty argument

and you will listen to other people's opinions and that you're only too happy to accept

the suggestion if it's correct, but you never come over in public like that.

Ever, you come over as being someone who, one of your backbenchers said, is slightly off her

trolley, authoritarian, domineering, refusing to listen to anybody else. Why? Why can't you publicly

project what you have just told me as your private character? Brian, if anyone's coming over as

dominating in this interview, it's you. Even 30 years on, that confrontation with Prime

Minister Margaret Thatcher gets the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. I still remember

watching that interview with a group of young Germans interested in politics over in Britain

for a weekend conference. They watched open mouth that anybody could talk to a political leader

in quite that way, open mouth too because she chosen to do the interview. She was happy to do

the interview. She didn't storm out or complain. She regarded it as a contest of equals

...