Top Ten: Political Diarists (part two)

6. Alan Clark
Clark wasn't quite as good as some claim, partly - perhaps paradoxically - because he was such a one-off politician. The best political diaries come from MPs who express private opinions shared by others, but since no one agreed with the idiosyncratic extremism of Clark, his books stand or fall on the strength of his personality alone. And although he was quite something by the conformist standards of modern politics, the truth is that he’s not really interesting enough to sustain three volumes. The best is probably the third, The Last Diaries: In and Out of the Wilderness (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002), which is dominated by our – and ultimately his – awareness of his impending death.

7. Chris Mullin
The success of A View from the Foothills: The Diaries of Chris Mullin (Profile, 2009) was something of a surprise, though it shouldn’t have been: after all, this is the man who gave us the classic A Very British Coup, so we already knew he could write. These first diaries covered his brief moment in the sun as a junior member of Tony Blair’s government and, though they were followed by further volumes, they’re still the best, since he mixes a bit more freely with the big players. None of whom come out of this account very well.

8. Lord Longford
As far as I know, he only published the one volume, Diary of a Year (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982), but what a year to choose. As an old Labour peer, he makes a fascinating witness to the high water mark of the left’s attempted takeover of the party in 1981. Worth reading alongside Tony Benn’s version.

9. Lance Price
Overshadowed since by Alastair Campbell’s work, The Spin Doctor’s Diary (Hodder & Stoughton, 2005) was quite shocking at the time, confirming much of what had been rumoured and suspected about the inner workings of the Blair government. It’s still a powerful indictment of just how wrong things went. And how quickly.

10. Barbara Castle
Castle’s diaries weren’t the first by a Labour Party minister to chronicle the Harold Wilson years – those were by Richard Crossman – nor the best: those are by Benn. But they have a charm of their own, particularly the second volume 1974-76 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980), as she finds herself maginalised in the government and becomes increasingly tetchy.