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Episode details

Radio 4,11 mins,

'I can remember I was scarcely coping'

Westminster Hour
Contains language which some may find offensive.

Available for over a year

Harriet Harman recalls the challenges of combining motherhood with a career in politics. When Harriet Harman became MP for Peckham in a by-election in 1982, she had no time to write a diary. Instead, she decided to write a report every month to her constituency committee. Sharing her archives with the Westminster Hour's Carolyn Quinn, Ms Harman said: "I can remember I was scarcely coping but I kept it well hidden." "It was a time when we were challenging what was a sort of generalised acquiescence in persistent racism and persistent sexism [...] It was a new movement which was absolutely going to be tackling discrimination, and so many of the things that we were raising then, which were a hard fight, people have now accepted are completely wrong." The former deputy leader of the Labour Party also looks back on the divisions among the Left during 1980s Britain and expresses her regret on not standing for the leadership of the party.

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