Diaries

[siggy]

Paddy Ashdown's diaries have recently been published and much fuss made of them in the media. Why does every retiring politician - or any public figure - actually think we care? And, presumably they've been edited, so they aren't a true reflection of what the person in question really thought at the time, are they?

[barrywom]

The extracts I saw of the Ashdown diaries were pretty interesting. Not because he's particularly interesting - he comes over as a rather leaden figure - but because of the light it shed on Blair and New Labour. That's the real interest in these things: the diarist will have been involved in major events and rubbed shoulders with world figures. And some are good, or at least entertaining - Alan Clark's diaries for example.