The Complete Reflections: Conversations with Politicians

On the BBC radio show Reflections with Peter Hennessy, the preeminent historian of British political life interviewed leading figures from the UK’s governing parties during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Bringing together transcripts of the collected interviews for the first time, The Complete Reflections features interviews the biggest names from the Thatcher era, the New Labour years, and the coalition government of the 2010s.  In The Complete Reflections, Peter Hennessy and Robert Shepherd provide not only an overview of the past three decades of British politics but also delve into the minds of those at the forefront of public life during times of great change. Hennessy’s deep knowledge and understanding of the lives and motivations of his interviewees, along with the obvious esteem in which they hold their interlocutor, leads to frank and revealing conversations in which the subject is not an object but an equal, giving these exchanges a unique veracity. The results are portraits of high authority, in which interviews become the chronicles that endure above all others—nothing less than the first draft of history.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements // vii Foreword by Melvyn Bragg // viii Preface // xii Shirley Williams (Baroness Williams of Crosby) // 1 Jack Straw // 33 Norman Tebbit (Lord Tebbit) // 59 Neil Kinnock (Lord Kinnock) // 85 John Major (Sir John Major) // 107 Roy Hattersley (Lord Hattersly) // 125 David Steel (Lord Steel of Aikwood) // 149 Margaret Beckett (Dame Margaret Beckett) // 171 David Owen (Lord Owen) // 195 Nigel Lawson (Lord Lawson of Blaby) // 221 Clare Short // 247 Michael Heseltine (Lord Heseltine) // 277 Vince Cable (Sir Vince Cable) // 311 Margaret Hodge (Dame Margaret Hodge) // 341 Kenneth Baker (Lord Baker of Dorking) // 371 Tony Blair // 411) William Hague (Lord Hague of Richmond) // 445 Harriet Harman // 473 Michael Howard (Lord Howard of Lympne) // 499 Paddy Ashdown (Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon) // 533 Sayeeda Warsi (Baroness Warsi) // 565 David Blunkett (Lord Blunkett) // 597 Iain Duncan Smith (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) // 625 Chris Patten (Lord Patten of Barnes) // 659 Alan Johnson // 687 Norman Lamont (Lord Lamont of Lerwick) // 719 Peter Hain (Lord Hain of Neath) // 749 Picture Credits // 775 Index // 778

About the Author :
Peter Hennessy is professor of contemporary British history at the Queen Mary University of London. His many books include Never Again: Britain 1945-51 and The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders since 1945. Robert Shepherd is a producer for radio and television based at Westminster. He is the author of Westminster: A Biography.

Review :
"Compelling stuff."--Robert Peston "Peter Hennessy's conversations with leading politicians of our time have reinvented the political interview."--Carolyn Quinn "The art of the interview is to caress, coax, and cajole your subject into revealing more about themselves than they ever planned to do. Peter Hennessy does just that with verve and panache."--Nick Robinson