This is a delightful and insightful read !
This came as no surprise to me as I read some of his earlier diaries some years ago. These diaries were just as interesting a read as the earlier ones, although in a rather different way. The earlier diaries spanned a time when Chris Mullin was a Labout MP for Sunderland and a good deal of the content related to the period of Tony Blair's leadership. He refers to Blair as 'The Man' which is a nice device and reflects something of his opinion of Blair. This involves quite a mix of feelings from admiration of Blair's rhetorical skills to seeing the more fickle side of him. These earlier diaries gave a close reflection of those in power at the time which I found gave me a considered view of events and of the main political players of that time who featured in contemporaneous news reports that I remember. In effect an historical retrospective.
This volume of diaries relates to the time when Chris Mullin was no longer an MP but had acquired considerable renown and financial reward for his various books and screen adaptations. So while they lack the close reflection on the current politicians they deal with more recent events and give a wider perspective of his life as a Booker Prize judge, National Parks Authority Committee member and member of his local and historical community.
There is a good del of humour in the diaries. One comment that amused me was his reflection of times when his wife travelled abroad which left him free to do whatever he liked without having to account for his actions. Although the diaries received an edit, this was clearly of a very light touch and his reactions and feelings remain true to the time.
One rather troubling event is where West Midlands Police bring legal action against him for refusing to reveal the source of some evidence that was used in the freeing of the wrongfully imprisoned Birmingham Six. His journalistic preservation of confidential source material prevailed and he was aquitted, this does not make me view the police in a better light.
He is a person for whom I have great admiration. As a Remainer he was MP fro a constituency which voted strongly for Brexit. He represented a community which had a prevailing hatred of foreigners despite many of them never having met one - they formed their views from the Right Wing Tabloid press.
