Shirley Williams

Abstract

My presence at this symposium as a contributor puzzles me. After all, the Annan Committee on the Future of Broadcasting, quoting the work of Professor Burns,¹ agreed with him that loyalty to the ideal of public service in the BBC had given way to loyalty to the concept of professionalism. It is well known that politicians are the last of the amateurs and generalists, those who aspire to know everything and consequently know nothing. Over a century ago, the prescient Robert Louis Stevenson said that ‘politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary’.² That is still largely true today. What I have learned I have learned in the fascinating and bruising school of the experience of government. As far as broadcasting is concerned, anyone who has read the blue and white papers produced by various governments at various times, would not regard them as classic works on the subject. Perhaps I am here as some last dim echo of the Reithian tradition? So be it. I shall carry the banner of public service for you.