Shirley Williams dead: Lib Dem, Labour and SDP ‘trailblazer’ dies aged 90

Labour, SDP and Lib Dem “trailblazer” Shirley Williams had died aged 90.

Baroness Williams was in UK politics for six decades, joining Parliament in 1954 and serving in the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan – including as Education Secretary in the turbulent late 1970s.

But in 1981 she broke loose as one of the ‘Gang of Four’ centrist rebels who formed the Social Democratic Party by signing the Limehouse Declaration.

The SDP later merged to form the Lib Dems, for whom she was a peer in the House of Lords for more than two decades from 1993, retiring in 2016.

She died peacefully in the early hours today, the Lib Dems announced.

Party leader Ed Davey said the news was “heartbreaking”, adding: “Shirley has been an inspiration to millions, a Liberal lion and a true trailblazer.

“I feel privileged to have known her, listened to her and worked with her. Like so many others, I will miss her terribly.

“Political life will be poorer without her intellect, her wisdom and her generosity.

“Shirley had a limitless empathy only too rare in politics today; she connected with people, cared about their lives and saw politics as a crucial tool to change lives for the better.”

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said: “Baroness Shirley Williams enjoyed politics massively – it meant the most enormous amount to her – and if she felt she could do some good in the world, she was happy.

“She was a trailblazer for women and education, one of the first women to sit in Cabinet and the only female member of the ‘Gang of Four’. Without doubt, she was one of a kind, and a character we all shall miss.”

Williams was born in July 1930 into a privileged Chelsea household with two live-in servants in Chelsea.

Her mother was Vera Brittain, a prominent feminist and author of Testament of Youth.

Her father, Sir George Catlin, a teacher of political science and unsuccessful Labour candidate, used to wheel Shirley to Labour meetings in a pram.

She was educated at the Summit School, Minnesota, where she was sent during the Second World War, and St Paul’s Girls School, West London, when she returned to Britain.

She went to Somerville College, Oxford, where she met Bernard Williams, then a philosophy student and later a don.

Before going to university, Williams took a series of jobs including as a land girl, a waitress and a chambermaid.

While working as a 17-year-old waitress in Northumberland, she organised a strike and won higher wages for her fellow staff.

At Oxford she became the first woman chairman of the University Labour Club.

She also won a scholarship for postgraduate study at Columbia University, New York.

When she returned to the UK, she worked as journalist for six years, including on the Mirror and Financial Times.

She and Bernard married in 1955 when she was 25 and they had a daughter, Becky.

Her first step in parliamentary politics was a doomed attempt to win Harwich in Essex for Labour in February 1954, and again at the 1955 general election.

She also fought Southampton Test in 1959, again without success.

Williams was eventually elected Labour MP for Hitchin, Herts, in 1964 and held junior ministerial posts during most of Harold Wilson’s first administration.

In 1970, her world crashed.

Her mother died and her husband announced he had fallen in love with someone else.

“It seemed so happy that I believed the fact that we did not meet much would not make a difference. I now know you should never, ever, take relationships for granted,” she said afterwards.

They divorced in 1974.

Yet at the same time her political career accelerated.

She rose to become Education Secretary in Prime Minister James Callaghan’s troubled 1976-1979 Government.

But she lost her seat in the 1979 general election which swept Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street – and it was the beginning of the end of her Labour membership.

Having been dumped from power, the party veered sharply to the left under Michael Foot.

MPs and grassroots members were alarmed at the switch in direction – and correctly feared it was a recipe for ballot box meltdown.

Many talked about defecting – and a faction of high-profile rebels led the way.

Williams, Rodgers, Owen and Jenkins, all former Cabinet ministers, issued what became known as the Limehouse Declaration – delivered near Owen’s home in East London.

It said: “The calamitous outcome of the Labour Party Wembley conference demands a new start in British politics. A handful of trade union leaders can now dictate the choice of a future Prime Minister.”

They formed a Council for Social Democracy, which later became the SDP, and Williams won a dramatic victory in the Crosby by-election in November 1981.

The party claimed “unstoppable momentum” in its public support, and its pact with the Liberals to form the Alliance threatened to “break the mould” of British politics.

At one point the Alliance registered more than 50% support in polls.

But its popularity waned by the 1983 general election when it returned just 23 MPs.

Williams was not among them.

She lost Crosby – a seat she won just 19 months earlier – at the ballot which delivered a Conservative landslide and entrenched Thatcher in No10.

Williams failed again when she fought Cambridge at the 1987 general election.

But as her political fortuned ebbed, there was renewed joy in her personal life.

She had met Professor Richard Neustadt, a distinguished US academic and former adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Carter. They married in 1987.

The following year she took up the post of Professor of Elective Politics in the John F Kennedy school of Government at Harvard University, so she and Neustadt could spend more time together.

She entered the Lords in 1993 as Baroness Williams of Crosby, and in June 2001 became Lib Dem leader in the Upper House – a role from which she retired in November 2004.

She was a regular panellist on political TV shows, appearing on BBC1’s flagship Thursday night Question Time programme well into her late 80s – even after stepping down from the Lords in 2016.