A View From The Foothills

The Diaries of Chris Mullin

Chris Mullin

ISBN 9781846682230

March 2009

Price £20.00

Hardback, 448 pp.

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Subject: Memoir

Other formats available: Paperback

Alan Clarke meets Yes Minister in this wry and self-deprecating diary about life in the New Labour Government from 1999 to 2007. Says Mullin, ‘It is said that failed politicians make the best diarists. In which case I am in with a chance.’

Chris Mullin was a Labour MP for over twenty years. In that time he was not afraid to criticise his party. But despite his refusal to toe the party line – on issues like 90 days detention and Africa, for example – he held several prominent posts. To the apoplexy of the whips, he was for a time the only person appointed to government who voted against the Iraq War. He also chaired the Home Affairs Select Committee and was a member of the Parliamentary Committee, giving him direct access to the court of Tony Blair.

Mullin is irreverent, wry and candid. His keen sense of the ridiculous allows him to give a far clearer insight into the workings of Government than other, more overtly successful and self-important politicians. He offers humorous and incisive takes on all aspects of political life: from the build-up to Iraq, to the scandalous sums of tax-payers’ money spent on ministerial cars he didn’t want to use. His diary is a joy to read: brilliantly-observed, it will entertain and amuse far beyond the political classes.

‘A View from the Foothills is his eloquent answer to those who believe that all politicians are in it for themselves.’
— The Times

‘A great read, more Alan Clark than Tony Benn, full of acute and dry observation, especially on the lower end of ministerial life. Because Chris Mullin is a writer.’
— Peter Hain, Observer