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Famous People from West Bromwich
Brian Walden
Brian Walden (born in West Bromwich on July 8, 1932) was
a Labour Member of Parliament and is now a journalist and broadcaster.
Brian Walden won a major open scholarship to study at Queen's College,
Oxford and in 1957 was elected President of the Oxford Union. He
completed a postgraduate course at Nuffield College, Oxford, before
becoming a University Lecturer.
At the 1964, Walden was elected
Member of Parliament for Birmingham All Saints, later Birmingham
Ladywood, in an election where race dominated the Birmingham campaign
(see Patrick Gordon Walker). He was re-elected in the subsequent General
Elections of 1966, 1970 and 1974 (February and October). He was a
campaigner for the liberalization of the cannabis and gambling laws,
even named by some as "the bookies' MP" when he was revealed to be
receiving more from the National Association of Bookmakers than his
parliamentary salary.
On 16 June 1977, Brian Walden became
Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, resigning from the House of Commons to
become a journalist and broadcaster. He has presented various television
programmes, mostly for London Weekend Television, such as 'Weekend
World', 'The Walden Interview' and 'Walden', and was a member of the
board of Central Television between 1981 and 1984.
Walden is
considered one of the finest political interviewers in British
broadcasting, tenacious and ruthless. He was well-known for his one to
one interviews of major politicians, especially Margaret Thatcher. He
was said to be her favourite interviewer, although he would give her a
tough ride, and she revealed in her autobiography that Walden had been a
speechwriter for her.
In November 1989, Thatcher gave Walden a
famous interview when her own Party was turning against her. He did not
let up on her:
Brian Walden: "You come over as being someone who
one of your backbenchers said is slightly off her trolley,
authoritarian, domineering, refusing to listen to anybody else – why?
Why cannot you publicly project what you have just told me is your
private character?"
Margaret Thatcher: "Brian, if anyone’s coming
over as domineering in this interview, it’s you. It’s you."
Brian
Walden continues to broadcast. In March 2005, he began presenting a ten
minute programme on Fridays, called A Point of View, on BBC Radio 4, in
a spot formerly occupied by Alistair Cooke's Letter From America.
He lives in Guernsey and recently has campaigned against a ban on
fox-hunting.
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