Baroness Williams of Crosby obituary

As a politician, Shirley Williams always seemed as ready to listen as talk, and this despite her own possession of the most huskily seductive voice in Westminster. She also gave the impression that fussing about her appearance did not feature high on her list of priorities. Her diminutive form would regularly surface in newspaper photographs — hair tousled, head tilted, ear cocked, with the whole of her attention evidently fixed on someone else. In 1981, when she abandoned the Labour Party to join the so-called “Gang of Four” in founding the SDP — signing what would become known as “the Limehouse declaration” at David Owen’s east London house — it had to be pointed out to her that she couldn’t go outside and face the