Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
First female Attorney General of the UK and first black female government minister, known for a pioneering legal career and serving as the Government's chief la
On the island
Eight records
Both my parents have now sadly died. My father died in January 2007 and my mother died on the 9th of December of last year. And this song really epitomises the love they had for each other, but also the approach they had to ask.
The reason that I loved Paul Robeson is not just because he was another lawyer, but he was an extraordinary person. It was a time when people didn't see black men as being particularly gifted or talented, and here was a voice that overcame and cut through everything.
Now this is a a real departure because it's um the music my husband loves and it also um it's a song that my boys and my husband and I have listened and enjoyed together.
It's so much about what was happening at the time, but also it's about justice, it's about changing things, it's about not being acquiescence to injustice and standing up not for just for your rights, for other people, and helping to make the place better.
Pie JesuFavourite
it is really the centre of my belief really that God is all. It is the last sentence of a Requiem Mass and it looks forward to the fact that God will save us.
And the reason we've chosen that is because I was always my father's brown-eyed girl, my brother's brown-eyed girl, and I'm my husband's brown-eyed girl.
Um my next piece of music is partly about him actually and partly about my younger son who loves this. And it's um Dance with My Father. I'd really love to dance with my father again.
Um number eight is for my elder son. He loves this song and uh he says that uh I am his African queen.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:39Did you ever think yourself about jacking it in [after the housekeeper controversy]?
Uh no.
Presenter asks
4:40I wonder how important they are, actually, to you [being the first female Attorney General and first black female government minister].
Um I don't see myself in those terms of um being the first to do things. I haven't ever planned a career. Things have just developed. And I do understand what my father always said, It's not about what you do, it's the difference you make.
Presenter asks
6:15Were you ready for that [life in politics]? Because I mean, both per personally and professionally, the implications of that are enormous.
I didn't see it like that straightaway because I had a passion for mental health, for for children, for family matters. Um I'd done a lot on uh equality and so it was would I join the back bench? Would I come to the House of Lords? And if you like, thicken the soup. I never thought it would end up with me being part of the front bench team.
The keepsakes
The book
A compilation of the writings of her children and nephews
Her children and nephews
because they would be absolutely irreplaceable.
The luxury
Presenter asks
22:41Do you think there's a point at which the state has to step away and allow people to take responsibility and make the difficult choices for themselves?
No, I think there's a real need for the state to be the enabler. You don't walk away from people, you walk with them. And I know when I started on this in two thousand four people were saying, you know, you're being too brave, you're being too bold, you can't change it. Today there are much better support systems in place. So for instance, I wanted to increase the number of women who had the courage to come forward. So often women suffer in silence and are too terrified even to tell the people they love in their own family what's happening to them. Looking at the figures now, we've increased the number of women who have the courage to come forward by seven hundred percent.
Presenter asks
30:28How conscious were you of partially the loneliness, but also the the sheer heft of that responsibility prior to taking on the role [of Attorney General]?
I think that's absolutely true because I thought that I really did understand the role of the attorney. I'd been two years as number two to the Lord Chancellor, I'd had four years as number two to the Home Secretary, I'd worked with Attorneys General, I had seen a lot of the work. I am a lawyer who's had the privilege to be engaged in government work over the years. So I thought I absolutely understood what the Attorney General was and what they did. I didn't, not really. I sit at the apex of two thousand government lawyers who scrutinize the work that government does day in, day out, and that is a huge responsibility that I take incredibly seriously.
“I think my family worked on the premise that you allowed other people's racism and their prejudice to be their burden and not yours.”
“The truth is that I had always loved God more than I loved anything else. And so I thought that if I continued to feel the same way, that's where I would end up. But then I met my wonderful husband, and that was that.”
“I think I've grown accustomed, not necessarily doing or being what other people think maybe I am or should be. I just unfortunately have to be me.”