Saturday, January 02, 2016

Paddy Ashdown meets himself coming back


There is an edition of Meeting Myself Coming Back currently available on the BBC iPlayer in which Paddy Ashdown looks back on his career with the help of some archive recordings.

It was first broadcast in 2012 when we still hoped  the voters might reward us for entering government at a time of severe economic difficulty. As it turned out, in politics (as in the rest of life) no good deed goes unpunished.

One of the recordings comes from 1983 when the Liberator spread above was not not only on the front page of The Times but was also the lead item on the BBC evening news.

It is characteristic of Paddy's generous spirit that, unlike his predecessor as Liberal leader, he said nice things about the magazine.

A hedgehog snorts: "Generous spirit"? He ate my Uncle Ernie.

1 comment:

Phil Beesley said...

Liberator did not (could not?) anticipate endurance.

Simon Hughes: "Over energetic and runs danger of burning himself out."