麻豆约拍

Clare Short looks back through her life in sound as captured in the 麻豆约拍 archive.

Clare has spent her life in the public eye, never less than passionate, never short of opinions.

From her first appearance as a community activist in the early 1980s, through to announcing her decision to stand down as an MP, her career has always been controversial.

What does she think now of her early causes - her opposition to Page 3 and support for the legalisation of cannabis? And what of those resignations?

Was she really, as she claimed at the time 'making a sacrifice to a higher purpose' by staying inside the cabinet despite her opposition to the Gulf War?

In conversation with John Wilson, Clare meets herself coming back over nearly 30 years of sound recordings. Will she be proud? Pleased? Or driven, as she says she often is, to think 鈥極h, shut up Clare' for her insistence on always speaking up, even when staying quiet might be a wiser choice.

Clare Short was the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Birmingham Ladywood from 1983 to 2010.

Producer: Eleanor Garland

First broadcast on 麻豆约拍 Radio 4 in August 2009.