Visiting Number 10 Downing Street is a unique experience – but for Prime Ministers and their families, living ‘above the shop’ and frequenting the most famous address in the UK is quite different. From the framed portraits of former Prime Ministers that line the grand staircase to the small attic flat, it is a living situation that few adapt to.
In the first of a recollection video series, Advisory Council member Baroness Margaret Jay of Paddington spoke with fellow Advisory Council member Laura Dunn to reveal what life was like in Number 10, discuss her father’s legacy, former Prime Minister James Callaghan, and explain her support for the idea of a Museum of the Prime Minister. She also shares details about her distinguished career in journalism and her time as the first female Leader of the House of Lords.
Video: Watch Interview
Timestamps
0:07 – Support for MoPM
I think a collective museum which talked about the office of the prime minister as much as the individuals and talked about the development of the way that the prime minister role has changed through time would be very significant and very helpful to people…
1:25 – Life at Number 10
I visited Downing Street a lot before my father became prime minister because he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and so we went in and out of Downing Street quite often…
5:05 – Former PM James Callaghan
History and political analysts have talked about my father’s time as prime minister as if it were only about crisis. I mean there were some very important positive things that happened during his time as prime minister which I can remember…
10:25 – PM Communications
In my father’s generation PM’s went around and spoke at hundreds of face-to-face meetings, town hall gatherings and fairly hostile campaign trips and that sort of thing. It’s now much more done through the electronic media…
11:04 – Women in Politics
I think that the whole issue about gender in politics, women in politics has developed and luckily become far more acceptable and it’s interesting that we talk about Margaret Thatcher, for example, as being a woman’s leader but on the other hand she…
12:19 – Margaret’s Political Career
I’ve had a rather varied career because I started off working for the BBC, of which I’m enormously proud…
