The Ashdown Diaries, Volume 1: 1988-1997

The Ashdown Diaries #1

by Paddy Ashdown

On July 1988, the day Paddy Ashdown was elected Leader of his party and this diary begins, the men from the Inland Revenue had to be hurried from the party's headquarters so he could make his first Leader's statement to the press. (The Revenue had called because of our persistent failure to pay National Insurance contributions). The party was virtually bankrupt, morale almost extinguished. In the depths of despair eleven months later, with everything apparently dissolving around him, he wrote in his diary, I'm plagued by the nightmare that the party that started with Gladstone will end with Ashdown.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Autobiography

638 pages, Hardcover

First published February 11, 2000

About the author

Following service as a Royal Marine Commando officer of a Special Boat Service unit in the Far East, Paddy Ashdown served as a diplomat in the Foreign Officer before, in due course, being elected as the Member of Parliament for Yeovil, serving in that capacity from 1983 to 2001.

Ashdown went on to serve as the Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1988 to 1999. Afterwards, he was appointed as the international community's High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, serving from 2002 to 2006.

Ashdown is also an author of many books, which include 'A Brilliant Little Operation (which won the British Army Military History Prize for 2013) and 'The Cruel Victory.'

Reviews

[Nigel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took a while to get into these diaries primarily because the first 100 pages or so we focussed almost exclusively on the internal workings of the LibDems, endless meetings trying to reorganise and re-energise the party, agree on the name of the party and deal with its precarious financial situation with almost no reference to the general political issues of the time. However as you get into the book that changes and the book provides an excellent insight into the political process. When something big happens (BSE, peace talks on Northern Ireland, EMU) the overwhelming priority of the senior politicians is not to champion what they feel is the right thing to do but to work out "what line to take" to best serve their own self interest. A good example of this is that Labour, the party that 25 years later overwhelmingly opposed Brexit, actually voted against the treaty that was the basis of our hitherto relationship with Europe, the Maastricht Treaty. Indeed the LibDems who have been the most consistently Europhile party in the last 30 years seriously considered voting against it, but eventually supported it. The other fascinating aspect of these diaries is how senior politicians in those days, far more mature than today I would imagine, would communicate and get on on a one to one basis. The book contains detailed accounts of meetings, many of them informal, between Ashdown and amongst others Prime Minister John Major and PM to be, Tony Blair. For example Ashdown would have constructive, friendly meetings with Major immediately after lambasting him at PMQs. Major would confide in Ashdown that he was really struggling to cope with a serious issue of the time, but that never got out into the public domain and Ashdown dd not use it to undermine the PM. There are very detailed accounts of the long negotiations Ashdown had with Tony Blair about Labour and the LibDems forming a partnership post the 1997 election or even a coalition. Ashdown's views on this are fascinating and I wonder if Nick Clegg consulted him before agreeing to go into coalition 18 years later. Also during this period one of the background figures is Roy Jenkins, a political grandee, formerly a Labour cabinet minister and nearly a Labour leader who left to form the SDP which then merged into the LibDems so he had a foot in both camps. Ashdown used him as a go-between during these discussions with Blair. The interesting point is that even at this early stage in Blair's political career Jenkins had worked him out. He didn't really know what Blair believed in.
If you like politics then this is an excellent read.

[Jim Bowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's weird. I'm a long time member of the Lib Dems, and have been active almost from its' formation. This book gave me a decent incite into what was going on in the party from its formation to 1997. Having read it, I'm still sort of reminiscent about having Paddy as leader.

I'll grant that for the regular reader, Paddy Ashdown didn't achieve a great deal. He kept the party going, and got it to make huge strides towards being a national force, but you could argue that party has gone now, and the events he describes are a long time ago, in a country that is far far away in time now.

This said, if you're interested in progressive politics, interested in the last 1980s and 1990s in politics, or just want a different sort of biography from a different sort of politician, you'll enjoy it.

One other thing worth noting is that when it comes to diaries, the gold standard are the Alan Clarke diaries. These aren't as good as that, but they're still eminently radable if you ask me all the same. I would generally recommend.

[Ipswichblade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent first volume of the late Liberal leader's diaries

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a great book...not a good diary either...

Honestly... I found it an "almost" journal... from a politician that "almost" did something that someone could be bothered about, who belonged to a party that were "almost" influential, a man who was "almost" involved in things that were important, but never quite achieved it...

Ashdown, from his not-so-interesting diary entries, would like us to believe that he was, in part, responsible for creating the "new" centre ground in British politics, when this had undoubtedly already been established more than a decade before by the Gang of Four when they established the SDP...

His only real area of knowledge and limited expertise was undoubtedly in matters military and conflict... Although well intentioned he was only really of limited success in the horror of the Balkans conflict...

It was and is all quite sad really... especially considering the tatters of his private life... his heir in the LibDems and his failure to as a UN envoy..... ooops....