Category: “Diaries”

First of all, thanks to the Independent on Sunday for devoting two pages to an interview pegged to the publication of Prelude to Power, which also mentions (and has pictures of the front covers of) All In The Mind and Maya, my two novels. But … and I think journalists know me well enough to know [...]

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 [...]