with a brass neck a silver tongue i do gordon paid every livelihood we know has some typically straight talking for those who seek to head it the twenty cry from two b.'s and me alex caught up with her and her dog are sure home. the real collie in the one thousand eighty's and ninety's you will the second best known politician and the country and the second best known woman poetess in the country second only to margaret thatcher the let's see a young kid with mccullough who was going to the conservative cause of this and birmingham city you know very well. what speech would you be making a boat about europe this week what would you be saying to the party. at the speech i was making there was about police. system margin you were speaking about your march twenty ninth we are officially out of the e.u. and i don't think there's any going back on that and i'm hopeful and now i'm

optimistic that in fact the trade deals we do with the rest of the world will be very very successful europe itself has turned out quite protectionist so you have pre-trained within the four hundred million but you haven't got much in the way every trade with the outside world doesn't stop germany doing lots of deals of term it doesn't stop us doing lots of deals with china but we are much more likely to do all of this and to be upfront about it you know better to have. the. law to me a few weeks ago in the show is that so overwhelmed with all these new deals he says we don't give up the ones you've got or you do there's a lot of the logic of there of course there's a bit of a logic in there and i do wish you'd go and tell people brussels actually alex with your powers of persuasion you would make a cracking good job i want you to pin michel barnier to the war and saying a best scottish brogue whatever is the local dialect that is being an idiot because what he's doing is disadvantage ing the rest of europe who has a french goal

a start but by generally speaking it open them to the wall much as well as i remember friends go is that this whole argument you lived through as a parliamentarian that the mastic debates as i did tearing the conservative government apart in the one nine hundred ninety s. do you see the same thing happening again with the reason is government you see the same extraordinary but on this and the vision over over you it's a strange world to be in i went to a lunch that very smart addressed not long ago a conservative lunch. and i asked him which do you think was the worst outcome about bracks it or gemma coburn as prime minister now for most tories it has to be jeremy corbyn as prime minister because as margaret made it quite clear we fight socialism we fight the whole economic can flossie offical regime and take up went

on and on about bracks it and i thought to myself i think you lost the plot make sure you would argue well it was his sense of history will we but to the norman conquest and the speeches that judge on the carbon premiership would be a passing phase whereas breaks that as he would think is full of well i think we're going to have to do is interview him and find out exactly what he appeared to say a light side of it. he comes from a very successful family father was a bus driver brought up four successful sons a texan doing and i like the way he's approach being home secretary were his some support through a lot of the deadwood and taken decisions very very quickly to things like wind rush and so. i like some of the next layer people and i think there haven't been treated terribly well by us elwood for example who was

a defenseman shipments of state level. when the vacancy came up for secretary of state for defense it should simply been promoted but that idea that williamson put himself in the job. he knows the model of trundle knows less about defense than i did. very important quality i'm in politics at the conservative party always been very good at is kind of shrewd pragmatism as you look at the world as it is you know what your philosophy and your principles are and mention the more about freedom and responsibility and this fear of being controlled by the states who have the state might be and you think how you're going to get the best prosperity for your people the most most reliable and sustainable future life i can't see a socialist government led by corbin be able to do that i can see a conservative government being able to do that probably not one run by to capri small but how would you leave the law and the tory party to slow what would your

approach be to the the costs i don't think anybody really wants to take over trying to negotiate with brussels not really what boris and a couple of the others are trying to do is stir it so that as and when she retires then they will be. well placed with the active membership of the conservative party have it with little to inherit the kingdom they may get a nasty surprise because the tories are no fools and people who've been members of the party for a long time like i have have seen leaders come and go. i think what we'd like is someone as strong as margaret but perhaps principled as margaret. barr's doesn't cut it for me because there's one thing it be pretty sure of and i think max hastings nailed him pretty well he's a man without principle is member of a party of one and he wants to be prime minister julian christly who was a very early day. conservative m.p.

in the late ninety's he once wrote that you hired this he put a brass mic a silver tongue and a golden pail which of these are to be served you best as a as a woman in politics about but as a complement there i love it. brass neck was the first in the sense that i come from liverpool i'm scouser used to talk like that you know. was lucky enough to go to a very all fashion city. grammar school had been set up many years century or so before and from there was able to and scholarship to oxford so i benefited from meritocracy and then you get to union you look around at all these people have these wonderful privileges and you think but i'm smart as you are and you start to learn how to use the skills that their great public schools have taught them how to

speak in public how to write. you know i went to the kind of school we had to do an essay three times a week but nonetheless to be able to write for a newspaper to be able to write a column to be able to write your own speeches and so on to different start and you start looking at them and learning how to do it. and those opportunities really then present themselves to to as an m.p. but they also enable you to get into that situation cattle market to elevate shooter to health minister pretty quickly. for the reasons the said but also for of the reasons you didn't see which were a talented politician and she left a blister and you pursue a vigorous agenda as health minister and their love of golf than the in the egg scandal the brass neck was essential to get through that with any than your resignation but if and when you speak to people know if you save me with a car you this is coming their exhaust or make some reference that very few

political controversies have lasted of today or could i say first of all that being a health minister under margaret was. a wonderful experience because she was actually a radical prime minister if you could convince or something she would say go for it and she'd give the opportunities and the finance of the world will get things happening she would fire questions or you need to have the figures you have to have everything written on the inside of your forehead didn't like it if you were shuffling up papers she would fire a question you had to have an answer it was wrong alex you could write her afterward and say well i said fifty five million but is that. fifty six minutes should be fine with that but you couldn't sat down. and remember coming out of one of those meetings and kind of leaned in case the job drama or my fish was saying you're all right minister i'm fine i'm fine i'm fine i'm just some third degree now i know what an egyptian mummy felt like as they drew out its brain through its nostrils with pincers she was like that you empty your head of everything and when

the x. thing came up it was a bit of a surprise because she had been a scientist and she could have read the reports like i did and she could have been aware that we had an epidemic of food poisoning and it wasn't it wasn't normal funny stuff it was very nice it quite variance between people in hospital every kidney dialysis machine in the country was in years and we were getting messages from the public health a barge service saying you've got a problem there's an epidemic and it's being traced to a new strain and in x. you're the public health minister what do you do we knew that you could have an affair affected laying hands which might produce occasional infected ect the problem was you couldn't tell they didn't smell or anything they didn't go off in the fridge but if you mix them into a cake mix. the cake to be fine and the cake mix put you in hospital we did our

utmost to persuade the ministry of culture fisheries our food math to do something about math and it was full of our most. and civil servants who thought their job was to be the trade unionists for farmers and there's some bad practice going on and if you think about it alex that kind of attitude in math led to b.s.e. soon after which costs billions. in blair days it led to foot mouth disease which also cost billions having sooner or later the scientists have to be given some respect in two thousand and one when the secret government report was a vent surely saw the light of day and said yes actually the war's endemic we're from production doesn't mean the majority of eggs but when the production systems are manila you would no longer than the in the commons then but was a a feeling of vindication it's something now that i feel quietly proud of. i don't

think i was wrong back in one nine hundred eighty eight thirty years ago. and i'm pleased that we now have really plain food it's now safe enough for nursing mothers people whose mere immune systems are compromised people on cancer treatment they can eat x. they can eat them safely and they couldn't then and i'm pleased with that i watched . a video of a little off for the you have to park there for your silver tongue was very much and a level should be a lovely speech humorous you won over the the student body but you won them over to an argument which you wouldn't expect to find much sympathy you were arguing that we're not all feminists low when it comes to feminism. a lot of modern feminism the stuff that i heard ram it was all about how we women were being held back because you men were stopping us and i'd look around and think them stopping me what's

stopping us is being willing to try being willing to have a go having a look at the system and seeing how successful people succeed so in that sense nobody was holding me back and it wasn't a man on your set destroyed in the market shared by just being better than those people and she used to say if if the prejudice against women means that we have to be better than the men it's fine and then she giggle and say that's easy i don't believe in equality under the law which is why i campaign for gay rights i am a believer in equality of opportunity which is why i want our schools is good as they possibly can be. but i'm not really believe in equality of outcome because the outcome in the end depends on how much hard work to basic talents how much ambition you have how much you're prepared to put yourself and i don't believe that we should level down things in such

a way that those that work harder only get the same as those who don't work. and that it to this guy like he acted fact i. had to get that all. done that will go and visit me and that to the money at the one of my leave you to get there . to get it.

did it come out they do it now and that is at the will my it is i'm up to him i am about and i think after i'm going to last and i don't i'm glad about how the now growing starting somewhere but i don't get just a little. supernova down my so out of town a lot of i'm a moderate fool who got in. yeah yeah without a doubt about a damn sight and i could see it as i asked by the way to liam and actually i myself . have been asked that they do. things about the truth so yeah i'm not a. it is a day at the d. about it but even the last and all of blue film and all the young siad.

and the evening and. welcome by after the political cut and thrust of the brass neck and the soul of tunnel that we nurse turn to a hugely successful writing career the golden pen she says she prefers writing fiction to enable have to tell the truth when she published the foster edition of our diaries in two thousand and three she caused one almighty stuck by the villain the truth about her relationship before the prime minister john major but first i asked her about her work as a constituency member of parliament for barbershop when dad was a sofa all these years ago what we're looking at we like ali as the twenty first constituency you went and said this is a mile of margaret thatcher but she's cool for europe this is a proponent of of equality and gay rights which you were but she's not a feminist how do you think we are judged this young woman who was coming forward

at the bottom for what did they see in this this kaleidoscope of attitudes when you get into a constituency as well you read realise very quickly that your your eighty thousand constituents are not clones of you so you're going to have to represent people why a variety of opinions and ideas and they'd be well advised to genuinely do what all politicians say they do but they don't go in alone listen. and so for the mining i was asked if i could go into the mine as well there and which was the club section and just sit down and get it was obvious the pits were closing and people were saying to me. we're digging dirt down there and it dangerous you were job was to get a summit else to do so that's when we were casting around for alternatives and up pops toyota why would tire to come to darbyshire they wanted to be within the e.u.

boundary because quite a lot of exclusions were cast coming in from outside they wanted to be in an area where nobody had ever made a car before because of the record of strikes in the car industry in britain they want to turn fifty acres a clean flat land with all services laid down and we had a an all deaf ear while the members were realise how important the single market would be to the other. do you know the problem onyx is trying to get somebody like toyota before a vote stanley i'm saying this matters for us. they didn't and the same is true for before the referendum on bill or the reference before the referendum business kept its head down. partly i think because the goal someone told them was going to be all right paul said it was going to be all right i mean really for draws and so they had on hand it was going to skill that never trusted and never trust a politician even when they're in government nobody can ever predict the future with blue to the but arsenic stooging good stead in politics will flow to the so

what tongue puts got you are some scrapes and the get your of some of those have been the golden pen when you started the rating to be a relief when you were still a member of parliament but there but for this stuff the lines are lightly idea of being able to put ideas into fiction because you can tell the truth and fiction you know if you're if you're writing a history or a biography or an autobiography you have to check with the libel lawyers and stuff gets taken out by a better to write about dead people well you're better to write a story like sell you try one of these days everybody does an early church or read a novel to be honest i thought i was going to lose my six and didn't come to four thousand majority and sat down with my agent who said what are you going to do now i said what do you think i should write a biography of margaret thatcher something like that until there i've been reading your short stories you're ready to write a novel. what i write

a novel about it well you know you tell us the stories about what the boys in westminster are up to when their wives think they're in london and the whips think they're in the constituencies and i said rather snootily well some of us don't have wives some of us have been is that your novel and i went to and i had characters called a.b.c. d.n.a. and each of them had a crisis in his life if i remember rightly four were empty is one wanted to be an m.p. or about thirty five thousand words one of been raped one was you know the jeremy thought thing where the person that you've met arrives and says hello i'm here and you think our no no that's the last place i need you one went home and find her husband in bed with the neighbor which actually happened to one of our parliamentary colleagues and i thirty five thousand words or a bit lively as you say and the agent kind of picked himself up from the phone said my god i think we'll auction this and it sold quarter million copies and

help really get me cracking on a new life and next thing on after six and parliament has vanished behind me how did you find the move to broadcasting to the radio to television there was that to start the extension of politics of the require more discretion i found one radio suited me hugely especially radio five who i work for quite a lot because it's live the phone lines are always open if people don't agree they can call in you listen respectfully to what they say and then you explain why they may or may not be right. you very seldom have the whole thing to yourself but by golly it makes the brain work and you're brought up against people who know more about some aspects of the topic than you do t.v. is harder because of cameras everywhere. and what you look like matters and it it shouldn't instinctively i think that the way you look is not something of which you

have that much control especially get older but that's that doesn't affect how they do their job so i would rather be on radio than on t.v. most of the time on the other hand i mean you're you're so special i couldn't say no to you what. was the problem that. you then you probably should dial you for submission of your diaries of two thousand and three which caused a sensation because you reveal the field john major in the way to meet these poor to sit at the people looking but know your support of fifteen years you're telling all of which you do the same thing again a few if you had your time again or do you think you were raped or to say we that it's very hard to say we do the same again because hindsight can be very useful that's not available of time what haven't got me really annoyed was john had

written a memoir published in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine i think eight i wasn't in it at all and b it was all a whitewash about how it was everybody else's fault that the ninety two to ninety seven government or for the part. and this just wasn't this wasn't true and i was particularly in sense because we've had all the stuff they part of conference in ninety four about back to basics and family values. anybody in leadership should be very wary of suggesting that we're all perfect members of parliament are human beings they have the same human failings as everybody else relationship between john major me wasn't wasn't a power play of any kind was one of equals but i felt that his view that it was it was always somebody else's fault. back to basics was him talking about family values with him and of all people he should have known don't go there

don't go there by all means be anxious and worried about your colleagues if they're filling their expenses. the anxious i'm worried about them if they're taking money for putting down parliament question that corrupt but their personal behavior should become of your business. and you know that more than anybody. damages the fans i think it's a little said that the mission of you from is is memoirs was was their list of who did it and secondly you saw the back to basics wasn't meant to be a bit past the hour what it was like you know going back to school and learning the free garzon and having toilets and water ways of a you know it was our thing i'm not here we are in the one nine hundred ninety s. we're moving towards a more open a more accepting society in so many ways blair latched onto it very very quickly. we should not be saying we have the virtue you should vote for us because an awful

lot of people are going to look at us and say well let's just go back through the notebook and just check out how much virtue you really got and then case that's what we should become pay campaigning on campaigning on competence should be campaigning on how you run the country how you run the economy. john did not turn out to be the prime minister that we had expected when we encouraged him and promoted him and pushed him in one nine hundred ninety and he successfully won that election he turned out to be a very weak prime minister and anybody that lets the editor cut stuff out. is weak writers well let me be absolutely fair because i'm not hostile at all what john was able to do and should have credit for was actually starting the whole process in northern ireland that slowly slowly got to store piece michael foot one so that there would still that we've gone from boy wonder to elder statesmen and the intervening period whatsoever but in your elder states woman period you haven't

lost any of your over your attitude life or your or your or all of the the silver tongue of the or the golden pencil which you think. color has got to contribute politically or as a mailing political and business or a stamp you would like to a mark you'd like to leave in politics you've still got a speech you've still got to make is that a book you've still got a way. wherever you are in life you can make a contribution to society unissued and you can make a living you can make something of way you are and you can you can enjoy it so i now nearly seventy two my husband seventy seven these have three different bouts of cancer where our lucky i'm blessed that he's still with us and still be a customer and i married a very long time. and. what i would like to do now and what i do now is

sometimes be the voice of older people we have fifteen million retired people in this country most of whom are causing no trouble at all paying their way most taxpayers they have been savers they own their properties they've never been in trouble in their lives and they are enjoying life they are the volunteers who roam the w.r.i. the churches the political parties they are the people you find running community centers systems of our spirit everything anything you can do you can have retired people what's the image of retired people that we are running up beds in the n.h.s. that we are holding on to assets that young people want. a lot of that is simply not fair and i will stick up for older people people like myself. and enjoy doing it. as it were based as you can see. we're driving electric car and we have solar panels on the roof and i meant twitter and facebook and all the

rest of it and i'm typical. so you speak for the plea people of you well last time i tried doing something like this i was part of a little group that went to harangue at the head of b.b.c. one about how few positive images of older people that were on t.v. were are the seen as a joke or was in an ospital but. singer my agent phoned me and says you're on strictly come dancing and they're going to have more old people on. it really have the secret of fatah no life and it's not just the set who as we play said that this is a quick scots go it for a loving cup so you put the whiskey only scott said in a quick and then the last is very very easy indeed thank you so much for picking though it sounds. thank you very much indeed that night. i wish best drink it you have to supply the whiskey we have it.

now the financial survival today was all about money laundering first to visit this cash into three different. good this is a good start well we have our three banks all set up here maybe something in your something in america something overseas or cayman island it will all these banks are complicit in their tough talk recently just after did not call and say hey i'm ready to do some serious money laundering ok let's see how we did while we've got a nice luxury watch for max and for stacey all beautiful jewelry and how about. luxury automobile again for max do you know what money laundering is highly illegal

for a large kaiser of course. i don't think that. israel is trying to somehow destroy borrow i don't think that they believe that europe babar also. and i think that unfortunately many in israel and in the united states are seem to very noise about you're on the road so. it's hard to imagine decades after the war a nazi doctor was still active rich in the nineteen seventies current intel had as the chair of its board a man convicted of mass murder and slavery ash was a german company told develops a little mite a drug that was promoted as completely safe even during pregnancy and it turned out

to have terrible side effects what has happened to my baby is anything paul you know she said she's just cut short arms minix a little mind victims i have to this day received no compensation they never apologized for the suffering that not only want the money i want the revenge. thank. god for. the top stories this hour video agency writes they obtained footage of residents in kunduz province in afghanistan protesting against the constant filming by coalition and afghan forces. all say this hour reveals that the terrorists who killed.