Shami Chakrabarti

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Presenter0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:26

My castaway this week is Shammy Chakrabati. As Director of Liberty she has used her barrister's training to huge effect, adroitly parrying what she perceives as fundamental assaults on our civil liberties a recent high point for her the defeat of the Government's forty two day detention bill for terror suspects.

Presenter0:44

Despite her diminutive stature and relative youth, she is still in her thirties. She regularly slugs it out in the media with political bruisers, and has been voted one of our most inspiring political figures. Her inspiration? To kill a Mockingbird. It's about walking around in other people's shoes, she says. Atticus Finch is just the perfect human rights hero. Shami Chakrabarty, you started working at Liberty then. It was on the

Presenter1:10

10th of September 2001, and that was the day before 9-11, the events that have done probably more than

Presenter1:17

anything else to shape the debate that we are currently in the middle of about our human rights. Do you remember what you were doing on that actual day of nine-eleven?

Shami Chakrabarti1:25

I certainly do. As you said, it was my second day at Liberty. I had a I had a new job. I was meeting colleagues and chatting about what the future might hold for a campaign group like Liberty, what the priorities should be. I had lunch with a new colleague, and when I returned, we saw the pictures appearing on people's computer screens and on the television. And it was, of course, completely horrific. I don't think I quite knew at the time, but I was also pregnant. And in the weeks and months that followed, I thought, you've just left the home office.

Shami Chakrabarti1:58

Is this the time to be leaving all your chums in the Home Office who are trying to keep people safe? And is this the time to be bringing a new life into the world?

Presenter2:06

Oh, many issues, of course, have flowed from nine eleven, and people have talked exhaustively about them, and maybe we'll get into some of them in some detail a little later on. But I I'm wondering if you remember how early on at Liberty

Presenter2:20

You began to understand that there would be an enormous shift in the work that you did.

Shami Chakrabarti2:27

What I didn't realize initially was just how fundamental the shift would be. I never imagined Guantanamo Bay. I never even imagined that we would depart from very old concepts of charging people and trying them before we punished them in in Britain.

Presenter2:44

And as you say, this this period of intense professional activity was to coincide with you being pregnant and giving birth. I'm wondering how much of a link there was between the professional and the private there, the the birth of your child. Did that did that also add to the mix of motivation?

Shami Chakrabarti3:01

It's very hard to separate these things. Becoming a parent had a profound effect on me, I think in two ways. Firstly, I don't think I would ever have been crazy enough to apply to be Director of Liberty if I wasn't drunk on being a mother and thinking, well, that's the most amazing thing I've ever done. Surely I can do anything now. But I think the other profound change was my attitude to human rights. They weren't just legal concepts or philosophical concepts anymore. It felt like I had a huge investment in the future, a personal, emotional investment. But hopefully also I understood more what it is to be afraid, what it is to really worry about whether your family are going to be blown up on the underground and or whether your child is safe. And I hope that that's helped the way that we try to frame some of our arguments as well.

Presenter3:52

Tell me about your first piece of music today, then.

Shami Chakrabarti3:54

Well, this is a no brainer for me. It's not representative, it is the th the song. And this is the song that my husband and I sang to our little boy when he was a baby. I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.

Shami Chakrabarti4:09

Are we

Speaker 34:10

Wish I knew how it would feel.

Speaker 34:15

To be free.

Speaker 34:17

I wish I could do all of the things that I can do.

Speaker 34:25

So I'm way overdue.

Speaker 34:29

I'd be starting anew

Presenter4:34

Mina Simone and I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free and that was a song that you used to sing to your son to to get him to go to sleep, Chamois. Um let's talk then about your own childhood. You grew up in North London. What are your earliest memories of growing up?

Shami Chakrabarti4:49

My earliest memories are of my parents' house full of food and full of guests and full of laughter and sometimes argument, sometimes heated debate. It was a very open house. They had friends who had come to London from all over the world and who they'd made friends with during their bed sit period.

Presenter5:09

So they'd come from Calcutta uh to Hampstead at the end of the fifties.

Shami Chakrabarti5:12

That's right. My parents lived in what's now obviously a very smart part of town, but in the late fifties and early sixties, when it was Bedset Land, they learnt my dad in particular learnt to cook. But they are,'cause they're they're both around, thank goodness, um, dreamers and not people who were ever really interested in making a lot of money and are that kind of success. What were they, Jim? They believed in things that I now believe in, but I now have language for it. I'm now a sort of human rights campaigner. Um a lot of the early motivations for that probably came from them. I've I you know, I've everyone's bored of me telling the story about my dad telling me why the death penalty is wrong.

Presenter5:51

That was when were you watching a T V report about the Yorkshire Ripper?

Shami Chakrabarti5:54

That's right. And I think I was trying to show off to my dad and that I could make some sense of this. And I said something about what they should do to that monster when when they caught him. And my dad is not a classic bleeding heart liberal at all.

Shami Chakrabarti6:10

But he turned to me very quietly. He's not generally very quiet either. But this was his one big Atticus Finch moment, I think. And he said, You've got to understand that no criminal justice system in the world will ever be absolutely perfect. And you have to imagine that you are the one person in a million and you've been convicted, no one believes you, even your family don't really believe you anymore, and you are walking to the electric chair or to the gallows, and how does that feel? And that is my earliest profound political memory.

Presenter6:44

And you say untypically for him it was a quiet moment of discussion. He was a big character. He is a big character.

Shami Chakrabarti6:49

He is a big character with a big heart and on occasion a quick temper and jumping into arguments and lots of opinions and there's a bit of that in me, I suspect.

Presenter7:00

And you say uh he's a great cook and your mum was a great cook too. Did was it there was lots of entertaining in that?

Shami Chakrabarti7:04

Yeah.

Shami Chakrabarti7:06

Lots of entertaining. I mean cash around to do the entertaining? Well, no, I mean there was never lots of cash around, but it was about their priorities really. I mean they really are that kind of family who who would probably eat baked beans for a few days and then save up to have this wonderful dinner for for all their friends. And they they were like that with me too. You know, they saved up so that I could go on school trips and they saved up for my violin lessons and and allowed me all these opportunities to taste the world kind of beyond their means really.

Presenter7:36

Let's take a break for a moment. Tell me about your second piece of music today, Lan Shammy.

Shami Chakrabarti7:39

Well, this is David Bowie. The the challenge here was which Bowie song to pick. I've picked this song because it reminds me of being at the L S C and going to Berlin the New Year's Eve before the wall came down.

Shami Chakrabarti7:52

And because it's called Heroes, and there have been so many heroes in my life.

Speaker 48:18

Just for one day.

Presenter8:21

David Bowie and Heroes, you mentioned that your parents saved up for some of the more important things in life, one of them being violin lessons for you. Is it true, Shammy Chakrabati, that a violin case saved your life?

Shami Chakrabarti8:33

Absolutely, it's true. I um went off to school with my violin in a fiberglass case. The fiberglass is important. And on a zebra crossing on the way to the bus stop, I collided with a with a car, or a car collided with me, and I went flying over the road, but the the violin case acted like a sort of shock absorber, and the the violin inside was sort of smashed up.

Presenter8:39

Okay.

Shami Chakrabarti8:57

And I was I was barely hurt, minor minor hit head injuries. So there you have it, you know, music saved my life.

Presenter9:04

What were you like as a young schoolgirl? I mean, if you encountered your schoolgirl self now, how would you describe her?

Shami Chakrabarti9:10

I think I was um precocious, probably a little irritating, probably took myself a little too seriously. You see, some people hear this and say nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. Quite intense. Certainly until my until my sort of late teens.

Presenter9:26

And you went to State School. Were you one of the brightest in your class?

Shami Chakrabarti9:27

Yeah.

Shami Chakrabarti9:29

Um, I was well, brighter. Whether I was one of the brightest or not, I was a swat. Were you top of the class?

Presenter9:35

But you talk with the clowns.

Shami Chakrabarti9:36

I guess, yeah. And uh I was a swat and I I beavered away and I thought I could do anything. And that thinking you could do anything came from my mum and dad, no question.

Presenter9:47

And your individual experience, the the the mid to late seventies, early eighties, a time of skinheads and bobber boys, and did you en encounter any of that?

Shami Chakrabarti9:52

And both are

Shami Chakrabarti9:55

I had a very fortunate childhood and I won't say that I experienced anything like some of the racism that so many people have experienced. But you couldn't be untouched by it. I knew, for example, that my parents had been subject to a racist attack. A physical attack. You know, my mum and dad were attacked by a group of skinneds, you know, when I was just a few months old. And there were times in the seventies when I felt uncomfortable. I can remember sitting on the tube with my parents and feeling uncomfortable by a group of fellow passengers, possibly football fans singing slightly racist chants. I was never terrified and it never went on for very long, but I can remember hoping that my parents hadn't noticed.

Presenter10:16

Yeah, my mum and

Shami Chakrabarti10:45

Parents haven't noticed that piece of graffiti. They're slightly menacing people at the end of the carriage, and of course, they're feeling the same way about me. Of course.

Shami Chakrabarti10:53

Tell me about your next piece of music. Good client.

Shami Chakrabarti10:56

This piece of music, beautiful piece of music, has probably haunted me for over twenty five years. Since I heard it in a film called Sophie's Choice, in which Meryl Streep gives a masterpiece performance playing a Holocaust survivor in the United States just after World War Two. It is a haunting piece of music, and of course, you know, the story that it tells and the Holocaust and the Blitz and all that become the moment from which we build modern human rights.

Presenter12:26

Daniel Baremboin playing Von Frenden Lenden und Menschen from Schumann's Scenes of Childhood and chosen not just because you love it as a piece of music, but because it brings back memories of one of your other great loves, which is the movies that was used in Sophie's Choice. We don't know this side of you at all, because of course we see you on television so often. We see this sort of public campaigning person who is always very earnest and serious, but you have this hidden love, which is a love of the movies. Uh when and how did it begin?

Shami Chakrabarti12:53

I'm sure that my love of the movies began with my mother. I can remember being really very small and sitting at home during wet school holidays, sitting snuggled up with my mother watching Hollywood classics. And it's just never stopped for me. The cinema has just been an unending source of learning and entertainment and at times solace for me throughout my life. I'm really delighted to say that my son feels the same way and I took him before he was 18 months old to see some cartoon or other and he held a tortilla chip between thumb and forefinger as the lights went down and the movie started and two hours later he was still holding it. Good sign.

Presenter13:35

And did you you had a plan at one point to go and work in Hollywood. You you thought that maybe where your future lay. Wasn't your career.

Shami Chakrabarti13:41

You're so cruel to expose these unfulfilled pipe dreams that some of us have. I had this idea that maybe I wouldn't be a lawyer after all, that I could go to the States and study screenwriting. And the grand plan was to finish university, perhaps go and make some money in the city for a few years as a trader or something. And I probably had no idea what that would really be like. I probably thought it was Wall Street or something. And then I'd save the money to go to the States. But there was a recession and I wasn't very good at adding up.

Presenter13:44

It's only because you've no big success at something else.

Shami Chakrabarti14:15

and I was competing with all these kids with their sort of maths degrees and did you go for a job interview? I went for I went to you know the I can remember going to the Chase Manhattan Bank um and to and to various other sort of city banks. And you know, I could I could talk a good interview, but when it came to the mental arithmetic I was I was way behind.

Presenter14:19

Uh

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Two.

Presenter14:34

And what about as a student then? As you say you were at the LSE studying law. Were you into student politics? Were you part of the student union?

Shami Chakrabarti14:43

So I was not into student politics at all. Why not? It was partly that there were all these mostly chaps actually, but all these guys who you could just tell wanted to go and run a small country and this was just a kind of nursery slate for them. There was also I can remember it was the first Iraq war and I remember people passing lots of resolutions about that, which was fair enough, but no one was doing anything about disabled access on campus. And I thought, hang on a minute, there's a mismatch between the grand ambition and what you might be doing, which is actually delivering something closer to home.

Presenter15:18

But given you're the person that you are, why did you not decide to roll up your sleeves, get in there and change that and have those debates that were important?

Shami Chakrabarti15:25

I don't know. Um maybe I was too busy going to the movies and and uh or maybe I was running away from my destiny as an as an angry campaigner. Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Shami Chakrabarti15:36

I have always had this kind of love affair with the United States. And I can remember watching a movie with my dad and seeing the end credits. It's an American movie. And he said to me, Look, there's a Japanese surname, there's an Italian surname, there's an Irish surname, but they're all Americans. And my parents saved up for me to finally go to the States for my 21st birthday. And it was a lot of money. You know, they saved up, I don't know, something like a thousand pounds. And I turned up for the first time at Grand Central Station with my Sony Walkman. I probably shouldn't say that on the BBC, but they probably don't exist anymore. And turned on Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as I looked up at those skyscrapers for the first time. And of course, you know, you think of Woody Allen's Manhattan, Chapter 1. He loved New York City, he idolized it out of all proportion. And I've loved it ever since.

Presenter17:23

The opening of Gershwin's Rhapsody and Blue In Memories of Every Woody Allen movie you've ever seen and standing there in Grand Central Station with that on the headphones. So, Shami Chakrabati, you graduated in law from the LSC and once you graduated you met your husband.

Presenter17:38

At the bar, but y it wasn't in a wig and gown, you were pulling pints at that particular bar.

Shami Chakrabarti17:42

Well, I was clearly pulling more than pipes. That's right. I you know, th the pipe dream of going to study film hadn't really worked out, and there I was kind of working out what to do next. And yes, he walked in and I eventually asked him out.

Presenter17:58

Did you have to work up the nerve?

Shami Chakrabarti18:00

I did have to work up the because I'd never act this makes me sound pathetic, but I never actually asked a guy out.

Presenter18:05

Uh

Shami Chakrabarti18:06

Therefore

Shami Chakrabarti18:07

And I haven't done it since either. So it worked out quite well. 100% record.

Presenter18:10

Was it

Presenter18:12

What's it

Shami Chakrabarti18:12

Remember, the majority of

Presenter18:12

An instant attraction.

Shami Chakrabarti18:13

It was, yeah.

Presenter18:13

Uh

Shami Chakrabarti18:14

It really was.

Presenter18:16

Have you not given him a new fool about why he didn't ask you out?

Shami Chakrabarti18:18

Oh, uh for years. Have I not given him an ear for? Do you know who you're talking to? Yes. Um an endless argument and banter for at least, I don't know, the first seven years of our relationship.

Presenter18:32

And then so the Home Office, it doesn't seem like an obvious fit, not quite a hand in glove, because you were an idealist, you were somebody who had, um, if not a sort of front line political view, you had a political point of view. To go and work at the Home Office, where you have to be apolitical and do as your masters tell you.

Presenter18:51

It doesn't doesn't seem necessarily to have an obvious attraction for someone like you.

Shami Chakrabarti18:55

Oh, I was an idealist, but I did and still do believe that the law is for the most part a good thing and that everybody behaves slightly better for good legal advice. And also, it was just going to be such a fascinating place to see law, policy and politics all coming together.

Shami Chakrabarti19:16

And and and that was you know, that was the motivation.

Presenter19:19

But did you ever find yourself, the you know, the inner chamois in conflict with what you were being asked to do? Because it would have been Michael Howard, first of all, would have been your home secretary.

Shami Chakrabarti19:27

Mr. Harvin, Mr. Straw, and then five minutes of Mr. Blunkett before I went, but not for that reason. Well, I said to myself right at the beginning when I started that everybody has a line that they won't cross. And the line that I set for myself was that if there was any talk of reinstating the death penalty, then that would be it for me. There's no way that I could work in that system. So that was the line. And maybe other lines would have happened. I don't know if I'd still been there. Interesting question to myself. If I'd still been there after 9-11, would I have sat there drafting laws that allowed people to be punished without trial or incarcerated without trial? I don't know. I hope not. But at the time, you know, I did raise a few eyebrows, not least in the family. I think my parents thought I was about to go and stand at the port and ask people the reason for their visit, you know.

Presenter20:19

Tell me about your next piece of music today then.

Shami Chakrabarti20:21

Well this is really for my extraordinary colleagues at Liberty, you know, and some of them fifteen or more years younger than me, but so wise and so professional and so able to make a difference. And this is the Kaiser Chiefs, the angry mob, and it's witty and it's ironic, but the chorus reminds me that you don't have to be cynical, you don't have to assume that public opinion can only be followed and never be persuaded or led.

Speaker 420:59

We are the younger mom, we read the papers every day.

Speaker 421:03

We like who we like, we hate to, we hate but we're all so easily swayed We are the younger mob, we read the papers every day We like who we like, we hate to, we hate but we're all so easily swayed

Presenter21:15

The Kaiser Chiefs and the Angry Mob. And you said there, Shami Chakrabati, that you were dedicating that song to many of your colleagues at Liberty. You came to Liberty as a lawyer and then, as you said, you propelled yourself to the front line and, you know, being a mother, you felt suddenly empowered to onto greater things. And your objective was to raise the profile of human rights issues which were passionate and dear to you and to make it a front line discussion.

Shami Chakrabarti21:40

Yeah, I I would say that I I thought that we had been sounding like a bunch of lawyers, which is fine for the courtroom, but it was really important to get our values out into the newsroom and the classroom and the parliament chamber.

Presenter21:40

Yeah, I

Shami Chakrabarti21:56

And I still think actually that uh we're very fortunate to live in I know probably the oldest unbroken democracy on earth. And you know, we can get a bit cynical about politics and about the the possibilities of social change, but I have seen it. You can bring a coalition of people together and you can make good things happen.

Presenter22:15

You seemed instantly to be comfortable with a very high public profile. You seemed to be everywhere all the time, and happy to give comments, and happy to sit there on.

Presenter22:27

Whatever it be the question time panels. And you know, these are these are very demanding public forums.

Presenter22:33

You enjoy that.

Shami Chakrabarti22:34

Um

Shami Chakrabarti22:35

Some of them are actually terrifying, the truth be told. I I think it would just be a lie to say that your stomach doesn't turn when you hear that question time music. So so yes, there are aspects that are that are terrifying. But the bottom line is if I didn't do this job

Shami Chakrabarti22:51

I'd be sitting in the pub complaining about Belmarsh and Guantanamo and Forty Two Days and all the rest of it, with a drink in my hand, you know. I get to do it with a microphone in my hand, and yes, sometimes that feels like a burden, but mostly it's just a an enormous privilege.

Presenter23:07

And inevitably, of course, when you have a high profile, and when you're espousing an often unpopular or unpopulist point of view, you come in for flack. There was a columnist in The Sun, John Gaunt, who said you were I'm quoting here the most dangerous woman in Britain. What did you make of that comment at the time?

Shami Chakrabarti23:25

Well, I mean

Shami Chakrabarti23:27

mister Gaunt, or Gaunty as he's as he likes to be known, did me a a huge favour with that one. Let's let's face it. I'm I just wish I were the most dangerous woman in Britain. Britain would be a lot safer place, you know. Do you worry about your own safety?

Shami Chakrabarti23:43

No, I don't worry about my what you mean whether I'm on on somebody's hit list? No. Well.

Presenter23:47

Well, I wasn't particularly wanting to be as specific as that, but there you are, putting across a point of view which.

Shami Chakrabarti23:49

Yeah, I mean that's a

Shami Chakrabarti23:51

Yeah.

Presenter23:55

as I've just illustrated in in the popular press.

Presenter23:59

can often be represented as this woman defends terrorists, she'd have them walking onto our tube trains with half a pound of Semtex strapped on their back without a second thought for the safety of our children. And that sort of argument is the sort of thing that could incite

Shami Chakrabarti24:06

The plan does

Shami Chakrabarti24:10

Um

Presenter24:14

um a particular sort of attention towards you.

Shami Chakrabarti24:17

You do get a little a little nasty mail.

Shami Chakrabarti24:20

Most of it.

Shami Chakrabarti24:22

Nothing much to worry about, occasionally something to worry about, and you know.

Shami Chakrabarti24:27

and then you do something about it. But I will say this when you're stopped in the street by people, they always have something kind and nice to say. But I have had more kindness and solidarity than I've ever had of the bad stuff.

Presenter24:40

And what about for your family? Do you do you ever worry about putting them in the spotlight?

Shami Chakrabarti24:44

Um I I'm I'm careful um about my about my son.

Shami Chakrabarti24:50

who I'm describing as my son and not by name, for example, and that is a that's that's a a a conscious decision. That's not just for safety. That's kids have to be their own person. Of course, we all care about our our family and want uh and want them to be safe. That's partly what this um what this debate is all about.

Presenter25:08

What about your next piece of music then?

Shami Chakrabarti25:09

Yeah.

Presenter25:09

Uh

Shami Chakrabarti25:09

Well, this is a fantastic band called The Enemy and they are sort of 20 odd, so now they're, you know, 20 years younger than me. Their music is contemporary and it's passionate and it's angry in a really positive way, but it also for me conjures up so many of the sounds and rhythms of my youth. You hear the jam, the clash, a bit of blur, it goes on and on and what they produce I think is as good as any of those greats.

Speaker 425:40

Living your life, body along The way she walk every day at hate Leave your portion on the floor It's all too much for you to take Your girlfriend don't love ya but still she's safe To make a home for you to stay The people above ya, they can get out The points, the points you'd love to make

Presenter26:05

The enemy and it's not okay. Shami Chakrabati, it strikes me that you find yourself, although you have been a a huge hit as the leader of Liberty and you have a high public profile and people want to hear what you've got to say and people enjoy the way you articulate it very vigorously and passionately

Presenter26:22

You are in that position at a time when both political main political parties want to out tough each other. They want to prove to the public that they will keep them safe and that they're serious about running the terrorists to ground. So in a sense you are caught in a very unfulfilling position right now.

Shami Chakrabarti26:41

Gosh, that's a depressing way of putting it. I ultimately feel positive about the prospects for protecting rights and freedoms in this country. Yes, I do think that for the last fifteen or twenty years there's been this authoritarian duel, if you like, between the two main parties. However, I do think that we can we're at a place now

Shami Chakrabarti27:04

where we can have a conversation about what it means to be tough on crime and terrorism. It's not just about passing repressive laws. Sometimes they're counterproductive. Actually, if we go back to the core values of democracy, we could end up with policies that are actually capable of making us safe and free.

Presenter27:25

But broadly the public does not agree with you. Broadly the public does want C C T V, it does want identity cards, it wants to feel safe in the airport and doesn't mind taking off its shoes and having its hand luggage searched four times. It really doesn't mind doing all those things if it makes for a safer UK.

Shami Chakrabarti27:40

Well, that's a sweeping list of things. I think with some of these measures, like cameras, for example, it's not about having them or not having them, it's about proportionality. And when people start thinking of the financial cost of various measures, like identity cards, they become very good at doing a cost-benefit analysis. It's my job to throw in concerns for your privacy and your dignity into the same, you know, is it worth the money kind of balancing exercise. You know, when I engage with the public, my colleagues do, when we do polling, when we test our arguments, we feel that our values run very deep in this country. Whether you agree with us or not on every particular issue, you'd miss us if we weren't there. And actually, I think that Britain cares more about its rights and freedoms than you might think. You, of course, are. Uh

Presenter28:34

Very earnest in your work. Inevitably, you have to be. You're talking about very, very serious subjects. But I once read you say.

Presenter28:41

I'm not a vegetarian, I just look like one.

Presenter28:44

Which I thought was very funny indeed.

Shami Chakrabarti28:46

Well that's very kind of you.

Presenter28:47

Are you aware that people perceive you as being this rather than

Presenter28:51

Um sensibly shored, earnest young woman.

Shami Chakrabarti28:55

Well, it's partly true, isn't it? You know, we are complicated creatures and there must be a bit of kind of the Grim Reaper in me. I I am actually wearing sensible shoes as we speak, so I can't really argue with I can't really argue with that. But when you're on the telly for ten seconds talking about extraordinary rendition, you know, kidnap and torture, it's not very funny. And you have a job to do. But I hope I'm a reasonably rounded person and I you know and I and I try to be. I'm very happy with how things turned out, you know. I don't feel that I should have been something else or I you know that there are lots of unfulfilled dreams. I'm a very, very fortunate and happy person.

Presenter29:35

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Shami Chakrabarti29:37

Well, here we go. Sensible shoes out of the window. All intellectual and musical pretensions are gone.

Presenter29:42

Care of red high heels for this one, I guess.

Shami Chakrabarti29:43

You finally got me, Kirsty, you know, soul laid bare. This is the song that we had at our wedding as our first song, and this is a lovely sentimental piece of synthesizer music from Cindy Lauper. It's Time After Time.

Speaker 430:02

The second hand done white is yours, you can look and you will find me.

Speaker 430:10

Time after time

Speaker 430:12

If you fall, I will catch you, I'll be waiting

Speaker 430:17

Time after time

Speaker 430:20

If you fall, I will catch you Where will we be waiting? Time after time

Presenter30:30

Cindy Lauper and Time After Time.

Presenter30:34

I'm worried about you on this island. I'm worried about the cooking particularly, because you once said of your husband Martin, he not only brings home the bacon, he cooks it too, so you're not somebody that we would naturally find.

Presenter30:46

Over the fire or at the stove.

Shami Chakrabarti30:48

Well, I think we've got more fundamental problems than that on the island, if I may say so, Kirsty. I think.

Presenter30:52

Yeah.

Shami Chakrabarti30:54

I think that, you know, I've never even been someone who enjoyed camping, so anything the great outdoorsy.

Shami Chakrabarti31:01

part is going to be very difficult.

Presenter31:02

Right.

Shami Chakrabarti31:03

And I think I will be lonely.

Shami Chakrabarti31:05

I think ultimately.

Shami Chakrabarti31:07

Though I've mellowed a bit with the years, I s I still verge towards the extrovert, and it'll be strange to be without other people.

Presenter31:15

How much time do you spend on your own?

Shami Chakrabarti31:18

Not very much.

Shami Chakrabarti31:20

Not very much. I mean, I can be alone and it's often a treat and a joy when, you know, when you're very busy and there are lots of demands on your time, but I

Shami Chakrabarti31:29

I I think it would be it's all right for a holiday, but I don't know how I'd cope for ever. I'm assuming I'm on the island forever.

Presenter31:35

Possibly, I have no idea. I'm just going to leave you there. I'm no control over what happens after that. Right.

Shami Chakrabarti31:41

Yes, I'll be worried about how to sort of

Shami Chakrabarti31:43

cope, find food and and all the rest of it. But I think I'll be even more worried about loneliness.

Presenter31:49

And the little girl who wanted to be Prime Minister or something of the world, would the grown-up quite like to be Prime Minister or something? Do you see do you have political ambition?

Shami Chakrabarti31:56

Do you see do you have political ambition? No, I don't. Um this was this was the perfect this was the perfect um job for me. Um it came, you know, i i in my thirties. Um

Presenter32:07

It is a bit like leading a political party to that extent.

Shami Chakrabarti32:09

Yeah

Shami Chakrabarti32:12

It is a bit like needing

Shami Chakrabarti32:14

There's no question that you you can't go you can't go on and on. And um and and in truth, I I don't know um what I'd do next. I've been Director of Liberty for for five years, the bulk of the war on terror.

Presenter32:23

Mm.

Shami Chakrabarti32:26

So I don't know. I don't want to start a run on the pound.

Shami Chakrabarti32:30

You've got to be careful what you say on the BBC because suddenly people will take their money out of the bank. So I think discretion will be the better part of Valer, but I'm not going to go on and on. You've got to go before people become sick of you. We don't have the money that big charities have for paid media. So as you've kind of very politely suggested, the principal spokesperson becomes like a human logo. And occasionally that logo needs to be refreshed.

Presenter32:59

Tell me about your final choice today of the eight.

Shami Chakrabarti33:02

Well, to some extent, reflecting on your discs is reflecting on the gift of music. And music has been a gift to me in my life that came courtesy of my parents with those music lessons, courtesy of all the great inspirational teachers that I ever had. And this is the most exquisite piece of Mozart. It's it's the requiem. I think I may feel a little melancholy on my desert island. I think I'll need a bit of solace and I get that from this piece of music. It's complicated, like me, like all of us. It's melancholy, it's heroic, it's tragic. I think it's worthy of the island.

Presenter34:40

Introtis from Mozart's Requiem in D minor with the Leipzig Radio Chorus and the Dresden State Orchestra conducted by Peter Schreier. So, Shami Chakrabati, I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, as you know, and I'm going to allow you one other book to take to your island. What are you going to choose?

Shami Chakrabarti34:56

Well, I've got a lot to read with the Bible and Shakespeare, so I'm not going to be, you know, short of volume, so I will take To Kill a Mockingbird because it's been such an inspiration for my life and it'll make me smile, so I'll do that.

Presenter35:08

And your luxury.

Shami Chakrabarti35:09

I don't suppose you're going to let me have my own little screening room so I can watch any movie that I like, are you? Yes. That's incredibly kind. This this island is is is looking up, but it's not quite as Spartan as I thought. I that will be wonderful. Thank you very much.

Presenter35:24

I'll even give you some movies to watch in the screening room.

Shami Chakrabarti35:27

Uh

Presenter35:27

Thank you very much.

Shami Chakrabarti35:28

And ma

Presenter35:28

And if you had to choose just one of these eight tracks, which one would it be?

Shami Chakrabarti35:32

I'm taking Nina. I I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.

Presenter35:36

Shami Chakrabati, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thanks, it was an honour.

Presenter35:47

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.