Category: “Diaries”

OMG, as the yoof says, if they (the BBC top brass of course) could see me now .. all alone in a BBC studio, sitting at a BBC computer, eating a BBC tuna melt. They’re very trusting these BBC people — I reckon if I twiddled enough of the hundreds of knobs in the vicinity, I [...]

And so, on this the day of publication of Prelude to Power, volume 1 of the AC diaries, covering 1994-1997, I bring you the news you have all being waiting for – the winner of the #neverhappendedunderlabour competition launched here yesterday. First of all, may I thank those who persuaded me to do a hashtag, [...]

Am about to leave for the Beeb to do my first broadcast interview on Prelude to Power, with Jon Sopel on The Politics Show. So just a quick word or two on the David Laws fallout. As I tweeted last night, I feel some personal sympathy for Laws, (which didn’t go down well with my [...]

I was rather hoping that we’d heard the last about MPs expenses. The election, and the huge influx of new members, alongside the new mood of ‘new politics,’ was a good break point. So as well as being personally and politically difficult for David Laws and David Cameron, the revelations of the chief secretary’s expenses payback [...]

Last week, in the – where else? – Mail, Janet Street-Porter wrote a piece suggesting depression was like the latest must have fashion accessory. The Daily Mirror today kindly gave me the space, as Mind Champion of the Year and a supporter of the Time to Change campaign, to reply to her ill-informed, silly and prejudice-reinforcing article. The [...]

I thought you might be interested in the release going out from Random House this afternoon about my diaries. They also have pictures of the covers but I am useless at getting pictures up here without my trusty website expert  who is too depressed about the Cameron-Clegg love-in to work! I’m sure someone will find [...]

It is as a statement of fact, rather than with any pride, that I confess to a certain phobia about online shopping. True, I am not that big a shopper anyway, and tend to come out in something of a rash on my annual supermarket visit, on the second day of our summer holiday. But [...]

In addition to publishing my new novel, Maya, this week, I am today launching a scheme to raise money for Labour’s campaign to keep out the Tories by selling individually signed copies of The Blair Years. I don’t pretend it will rival the Belize millions the Tories can rely on, but every little helps, as [...]