I'm a bit of a fan of political diaries - most politicians leave their memoirs to the time when they have taken the Chiltern Hundreds and retired from Westminster. Not so Chris Mullin.
The MP for Sunderland is standing down but befiore he goes he's publishing his memoirs of life in Government in a ( very) junior capacity.
I've been reading them on-line and the tone is frankly, tedious and embittered. A former man of the left, and author of the spendid A Very British Coup, Mullin became a devotee of New Labour ( see Tony Benn's diaries) and briefly, clearly, cherished dreams of senior office. Enough to eschew independence as a backbencher for the toil of junior ministerial life .
To his credit, Chris Mullin voted against the Iraq War and in latter years has re-gained something of his "cred" but to my mind someone who has benefitted from the patronage of Government office should not now be publishing personal tittle-tattle about senior figures at a time when Labour is in serious trouble. He may be leaving it all behind him. But the Party is going to be fighting for its life at the next election .
On a personal note, I've met Chris Mullin and have no doubt he is a clever man who once had reason to harbour dreams of high office. But when charisma bypasses were invented he was one of the first in the queue for the operation
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I have to confess I got The Mail On Sunday yesterday because I thought that it was offering a free DVD of West Side Story. I should have paid more attention to the ad, it was just a CD of songs from the film. You're right that Mullin comes across as an embittered failed careerist. This could be in part down to editing but a paper like the Mail is hardly going to be sympathetic to Labour is it?
What was even worse though was an article by Frank Field praising Mrs Thatcher. Apparently, she was the saviour of Cammell Laird shipyard as well as being one of the greatest PM's ever.
Mullin was a far better MP than most of the lefties in the 80s. As far charisma he also outshone the various drabbish tendencies that pulled Labour down in 1982, 87 and 92.
Anonymous, which "drabbish tendency" are you referring to? Neil Kinnock? John Smith?
My main criticism of Mullin is that he is choosing to make capital out of memoirs which seemingly rubbish his colleagues in Govt at a time when Labour is in dire straits. Not helpful, surely?
The drabbish tendencies I'm clearly talking about were the folk who spoiled Kinnock's chances: the Hattons, the Tatchells, the monstrous regiment of wimmin such as Clare Short. Popular with activists but not with electors. And it is a well-known habit of ex-ministers and party hacks to sell their stories top the Mail. After all, the Guardian pays peanuts as you will know.
Didn't Fatty Prescott sell his book to the Mail. And I seem to recall that Fatty Hattersley was a regular feature writer for the Mail's glossy magazines.
But then Michael Foot used to write for Beaverbrook when the Express was even more rabid than the Mail is today. Tribune couldn't pay for his Hampstead lifestyle.
And George Orwell wrote for the Manchester Evening News, once a paper that encouraged literature, not the rag that it is today, full of rhubarb from PR women.
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