Bernard Donoughue

Let me be honest, before reading this biography, the name Bernard Donoughue rang some sort of bell, somewhere in the cranium, but I would have been sore pressed to tell you more: this is my ignorance, I hasten to add, rather than a failing of Mr Donoughue. It needed saying, however, before I pontificate upon the man and his book.

Donoughue worked with Labour governments from Wilson to Blair, helping to set up the number 10 Policy Unit and always representing the right (as opposed to left - and possibly wrong!) of the party. His biography varies from those of so many politicians in two main ways; firstly, he recounts his life story, rather than being born, educated and arriving into the senior echelons of politics on page one, having five hundred pages of government followed by a paragraph, post power, to wrap up the book. Donoughue has that life outside politics; one gets the feeling with so many of today's politicians that politics was an interesting university choice and that they then fell in to the career, with no experience of life as lived by 'the people'. Secondly, so many political biographies are written with the wisdom of 20:20 hind-sight. I was always in favour of...(insert a popular act of governance) whilst, always opposing ... (insert a failure of the government). Donoughue is not guilty of this nor, is he all knowing. On the subject of Marcia Williams relationship to Harold Wilson, he gives several insights into their strange behaviour and a flavour of the tittle tattle passing amongst his peers, but does not try to give a definitive solution.

The book is well written, if just a trifle self congratulatory and, perhaps the best epithet to any book, it has made me want to pursue the story. I have ordered copies of Marcia Williams and Joe Haines memoires, to discover different perspectives upon the Wilson government - and also Harold Evans book about his time as editor of the Times newspaper.

Donoughue rose from poverty to high office and, according to his version of reality, seems to have had a nack for not spotting a 'wrong'un': after working for Wilson, he moved on to be close to both Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch - talk about swimming with sharks!

The book ends with a prescient summing up of the Blair government, written whilst it was still in office.

I would agree with the quote from Richard Stott of the Guardian, "A must for anyone who is a serious student of New Labour".… (mais)

“…Donoughue combines a brilliant mind with strong emotion and beliefs. Reading the extraordinary story of his rise from nowhere provides an insight into the latter which is more important with politicians than you think. If he was not an Irish catholic, he would be a very different man! It also demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of those who reach the top. …”-reviewed by Lord David Lipsey in FiveBooks.

Full interview is available here: http://fivebooks.com/interviews/david-lipsey-on-british-politics
… (mais)