Diaries: into politics - Hardcover

Clark, Alan Edited By Ion Trewin

3.93

145 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297644025 ISBN 13: 9780297644026

Publisher: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001

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Alan Clark’s Diaries are the best account of the last quarter of a century of British politics.

The first volume was published to enormous acclaim and bestselling success in hardback and paperback (30 weeks overall on the Sunday Times bestseller list). As The Times wrote in a leading article: ‘The best diarists, from Pepys and Boswell, to "Chips" Channon and Harold Nicolson, have been the souls of indiscretion. But none so indiscreet as Mr Clark. ... For its Pooterish self-assessment, for Mr Toad’s enthusiasm for new things, for Byron’s caddishness, for its deadly candour, it is one of the great works in the genre.’

‘Into Politics’ begins in 1973 with Clark’s selection as Tory candidate for Nancy Astor’s old seat in Plymouth (rival candidates included future Conservative luminaries, Michael Howard and Norman Fowler) his election to the Commons in the 1974 general election. His years as a backbencher coincide with Edward Heath as PM, his downfall and the arrival of Margaret Thatcher. This volume ends with the inside story of the Falklands War. In his private life Alan and his wife Jane and their two young sons take over Saltwood Castle (previously the home of his father Kenneth (Civilisation) Clark). His enthusiasms for the estate, skiing, fast cars and girls are never far away.

For the hundreds of thousands of readers who were enthralled by the first volume, ‘Into Politics’ will be an event.

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About the Author:

Alan Clark, educated at Eton and Oxford, read for the Bar but did not practise. Tory MP for Plymouth Sutton 1972-1992; Kensington and Chelsea, 1997-99. Various junior ministerial appointments in the Margaret Thatcher and John Major governments of the 1980s. Best-known for his Diaries, which The Times placed in the Samuel Pepys class.

Review:

With more than 300,000 copies of the original Diaries sold since their publishing caused a sensation in 1993, here is the long-awaited and posthumous "prequel". Starting in 1972, when Clark was searching for a parliamentary seat and at the same time was given Saltwood Castle in Kent by his father Kenneth Clark (of Civilisation fame), he chronicles election success in Plymouth, and early days in the Commons where Ted Heath has been deposed as leader of the Tories and replaced by Margaret Thatcher. There is Saltwood itself and the countryside surrounding it, there are birds (both feathered and human) and there is his family. At the same time bankruptcy threatens and he is only saved by a remarkable "find" inside Saltwood itself. The climax is the Falklands War - with revelations from a unique political animal with the inside track. At the same time this second volume has all the ingredients of fine writing and humour that made the first volume such a hardback and paperback bestseller. Clark's editor at Weidenfeld, Ion Trewin, also provides the introduction.

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