By Elliott West
“You never know what people are capable of until you give them the opportunity to show it.”
Betty Boothroyd
Introduction
Politics has always been a subject close to my heart. I first joined the Labour Party when I was 17 and have supported them continuously through the bad and good times. Through the long history of this political party that was first founded out of the trade union movement in 1900, there have been a number of impressive and straight-talking female Labour MPs who have truly inspired me, Barbara Castle and Mo Mowlam to name but two. However, for this piece, I wish to concentrate on someone who fought the political doctrine of the Conservative Party throughout her life but made legions of supporters and friends throughout the political divide. The lady in question, is of course Betty Boothroyd, the Labour MP for West Bromwich and West Bromwich West from 1973-2000 and later Speaker of the House of Commons 1992-2000 and finally, a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords due to having been Speaker.
Formidable and Proud
Betty Boothroyd hailed from Dewsbury, a town in the heart of Yorkshire and when she was born there in 1929, a hive of industrial activity with many of the textile mills based here and both her parents, Ben and Mary working there, entering service at the tender age of 13. An only child, Boothroyd had a working-class upbringing where she first witnessed the rise of the black shirt fascists under Oswald Mosley and experienced the rise of the Labour Party. Educated in locally run council schools, Betty would go on to attend Dewsbury College of Commerce and Art. A college that she attained a scholarship to attend, at age 13. Although not academic, Boothroyd loved writing essays. Her parents instilled in her the importance of education and her father even once used his lunch break to collect Betty’s homework when she was ill for two weeks. A foundation that would draw her towards the bright lights of the arts and then the fascinating world of politics.
The Limelight
Betty was part of an age where the theatre played a dominant role in the social lives of the UK population. It was an escape from the humdrum world of manual labour and the well-used clock that monitored the start and finish times of the workers. So it wasn’t a surprise that Boothroyd wanted to escape and find her own career path. This wouldn’t happen until she had spells as a shop assistant and a short-hand typist. Politics would come later but Betty would travel with her mother to a number of Labour Party rallies in Huddersfield or Leeds on a Saturday afternoon, armed with a mountain of jam sandwiches and the odd cheeky rolled-up cigarette that her father had taught her to roll. Here they would hear the early stirring speeches of Clement Attlee, Nye Bevan and Jennie Lee. It inspired Boothroyd to join the Labour League of Youth at 16.
Betty would go on to join the famous dance troupe, The Tiller Girls. She loved dancing, so much so that she nearly broke her father’s heart when she tried to turn professional when she was 17. Prior to joining the famous troupe, she was a singer and dancer with a jazz band called the Swing Stars, Betty and the band used to hoof it, entertaining servicemen under the auspices of ENSA. These were happy days and a throwback to a more innocent age where entertainment and music were a vital escape from the working day.
Boothroyd craved excitement and glamour and so she travelled to the bright lights of London to audition for the Tiller Girls. An audition where she was successful. However, it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. It was the freezing winter of 1946 and Betty was miserable in her cold lodgings at the Theatre Girls’ Club on Greek Street. She would go on to perform a brief stint at the London Palladium before moving on to Luton for a performance in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
However, this stab at stardom would only last five years and Betty was forced to leave after getting a foot infection. Limping home with a bruised ego, she later admitted that she wasn’t very good at it and it would be another 30 years before she would appear, like the Tiller Girls at the Blackpool Winter Gardens but this time as part of the Labour Party’s national executive committee. She never forgot her brief period under the bright lights but back in Dewsbury she put her nose to the grindstone and took on a job as a secretary to the Road Haulage Association.
The Lure of Politics
The London calling was too great for Betty to resist and she packed her suitcase and returned in 1952. This time it would be for the lure of her burning passion, politics. Boothroyd joined the research department at the then Labour Party’s headquarters at Transport House on Smith Square as a secretary. Quickly recognised as a rising star, she went on to work as a parliamentary secretary in the House of Commons, first to Barbara Castle and then to Geoffrey de Freitas. This would be followed by spells working for a US congressman in Washington DC for two years, working on the John F Kennedy election campaign and for one of the first Labour peers in the House of Lords, Lord Walston.
This was a fitting beginning to her political trail, a journey that she described as “coming out of the womb into the labour movement”. Betty served as a Labour councillor at Hammersmith Borough Council from 1958 until 1968. However, she had to do it the hard way and becoming a Labour MP would take five attempts. She failed to win Leicester South East in 1957 in a by-election and later in 1959, Peterborough in a general election. Many would have faltered and given but not Boothroyd. She loved the campaign trail and wasn’t afraid to get on the battle bus and pick up a microphone, using her booming voice to appeal to the constituents of the local community. Success came at last when she won the safe Labour seat of West Bromwich in 1973 with an 8,000-seat majority. A triumph that meant so much to her, Betty commented at the time, saying:
“I had become the girl least likely to succeed,” she later recalled. “If I had lost West Bromwich, I would have slit my throat.”
Betty Boothroyd
This was a time when the Conservative government of Edward Heath was in its death throes. A United Kingdom that was wracked with industrial strife and the National Front was on the rise. Betty rolled up her sleeves, joining just 27 female MPs in the House of Commons at the time and got stuck in. Spotted for her potential, this gutsy lady who shunned love for politics was appointed as an assistant whip in the Harold Wilson government of 1974. She would go on to serve on both the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Speaker’s Panel of Chairmen in 1979.
Boothroyd loved a fight and wasn’t afraid to take on the looming and potentially dangerous National Front in her constituency or the troublesome and poisonous militant tendency that had infiltrated the Labour Party in the early 1980s. With a style of politics that was loud and proud, Betty’s’ politics were all about getting your point across and heard, fighting for the issues of the time. A role that she successfully did from 1973-2000. Although part of this time was spent in the Speaker’s Office.
The Voice
In 1987, she took on a new role and joined the Speaker’s Office as deputy speaker in the House of Commons. A position that she would hold until 1992. This was the year that the then speaker, Bernard Weatherill decided to step down and Betty was persuaded by colleagues to stand for the position. In the election she romped home, winning the ballot by 372 votes to 238. This was an enormous achievement, smashing history by becoming the first female speaker and the first opposition MP to be elected to the role. A popular choice that was supported by all political parties and as she was traditionally pulled to the speaker’s seat, all members of the house got to their feet and applauded her. She went on to say in her acceptance speech:
“Elect me for what I am, and not for what I was born”.
Betty Boothroyd
Boothroyd’s time as the speaker was a joyous one. She was referred to as Madam and she definitely ruled the roost. Ditched was the traditional wig as being too heavy, she took on troublesome members of the House of Commons and put them in their places, so much so that she had to prise a question of the then Liberal Democrat MP, Simon Hughes in the middle of a rowdy house. Her catchphrase became “Time’s Up” and you would be a brave person to argue against that. She stuck to the rules and adopted a no-nonsense approach. A speaker who was there in the early days of live coverage of the house with television cameras only being first permitted in 1989.
Although a woman, Betty was a traditionalist and didn’t agree with some of the more liberal practices trying to be adopted. She once banned women from breastfeeding during select committee hearings but only once banned an MP. It had to be the firebrand DUP member, Ian Paisley who accused a minister of lying and so was sanctioned for 10 days. Her time was full of glorious moments including the state visit to Britain of Nelson Mandela in 1996 who was at that time frail and had to be guided by Betty, Jacques Chirac’s visit the same year where he kissed her hand and Labour’s landslide victory in 1997. Her time would finally come to an end in 2000 but she would go out in style, clapped out by MPs after her farewell speech. A lady whose personal motto was “I speak to serve”.
The Lords and Beyond
Betty Boothroyd would go on to serve as a cross-party peer in the House of Lords. Here she remained vocal, especially on Brexit, highly critical of the Cameron and Johnson governments and believed that leaving the EU would have a detrimental effect on future generations. She gave a rousing speech in the House of Lords on the subject and at a youth rally. At the time, having been first elected as an MP 47 years previously and having witnessed nine Prime Ministers, Boothroyd was scathing in one speech in the House of Lords about Boris Johnson saying:
“Never in my parliamentary experience have I witnessed such a collapse of the people’s trust in a government that promised so much and so quickly and is now groping for desperate solutions to problems it said would not arise”.
Betty Boothroyd
Afterthoughts
Betty Boothroyd died peacefully recently, aged 93 in a hospital in Cambridge but her legacy will never be forgotten. She was a formidable, female force who broke gender boundaries to achieve her goals in life. I once briefly met Betty when I was at work, working on the gate line at High Street underground station in my early days at London Underground in 2002. She asked me for directions as she was there to do a book signing for her autobiography. I was struck by her presence and warmth, the twinkle in her eye and her infectious smile. Never married and a woman who decided not to have any children, Betty was popular, brash and loud-spoken. A lady who was not to be messed with but loved by those that crossed her path in life.
