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Meeting Myself Coming Back

Factual: Life Stories

High-profile figures, in conversation with John Wilson, replay their own sound archive

High-profile figures, in conversation with John Wilson, replay their own sound archive and use it as a basis for a re-examination of their lives

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Meeting Myself Coming Back: Series 6

Meeting Myself Coming Back: Episode 3: Michael Howard

Michael Howard

Episode 3

Episode 3: Michael Howard

BBC Radio 4 - Meeting Myself Coming Back, Michael Howard

Michael Howard and Jeremy Paxman meet again as Lord Howard reflects on 50 years of archive

Michael Howard grilled again - not by Paxman, but John Wilson, who gives him the chance to reflect on 50 political years. Don't worry, this includes Paxman too.

"Mr Howard, did you threaten to overrule him.. I note you are not answering the question.. did you threaten to overrule him..."

Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, is a brave man, confronting his own media archive in this week's MEETING MYSELF COMING BACK. Surely by now he has tired of hearing himself being Paxmaned in 1997 - that same question asked over and over. But Howard's political career was merely stalled by the grilling, not stopped. Having lost out to William Hague in the 1997 leadership election - scuppered, some think, by Ann Widdecombe's remark that there was 'something of the night about him' - the Conservative Party would turn to him again as a leader in 2003.

Lord Howard relives his most memorable time in Prime Minister's Questions, confronting Tony Blair on university top-up fees.
"Let's make it clear Mr Speaker. This grammar school boy is not going to take any lessons from that public school boy there..!" But was this killer blow actually that grammar school boy's line?
He confesses to presenter John Wilson, "I think George may have possibly come up with it....." George Osborne being one of two advisors helping him prepare for PMQ's that day, the other being a fresh faced David Cameron - neither famous for their grammar school credentials.

From tales of strip bars in Los Angeles, to the moving tale of hearing about his wife's delivery of their daughter, whilst in the midst of a heated road enquiry, Lord Howard takes time to reflect on the highs, lows and blows of his long career, including an extraordinary moment when, during a visit to West Berlin 1963, he chanced upon J.F. Kennedy, making his famous speech, and saw 'the weight of the world resting on the slim young shoulders'.

Producer : Sara Jane Hall.

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