When Paddy Ashdown became leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats he began to keep a diary. THE ASHDOWN DIARIES give an unprecendented insight into how a modern political party is managed and a first-hand account of attempts to create a new centre left strategy in British politics. From Ashdown's early struggles to rescue his party from oblivion to the intense pressures of the 1992 election; from Europe's...
failure in the Balkans to Blair and Ashdown's secret plans to oust the Conservatices in1997, these diaries provide a fasinating portait of a key period in our recent history.