A view from the Foothills: 7/10

The man behind A Very British Coup has published his memoirs as an MP.

It's an eye-opening insight into the inner workings of the Blair/Brown machine which has ruled Britain since 1997. It also shows that MPs - despite their duck islands and moats - can be a human bunch, burdened with the same insecurities and troubles of plebs like us, and often saddled with unfulfilling and demoralising jobs that make zero use of a person's skills.

I zoomed through A View From The Foothills: The Diaries of Chris Mullin in what for me was record time (the last time I read a book approaching 600 pages I notched up two birthdays before I finished it!). It's witty, observationally brilliant and shows that for all his supposed decency, Prime Minister Gordon Brown is just a power-crazed, insecure schemer who now appears to be getting his just desserts.

The one thing Mullins wrote that I took exception to was his throwaway line that Cherie Blair's empathy with suicide bombers was no big deal. Hopefully in my capacity as a journalist I'll come across him before long and put that to him.

Otherwise, Chris comes across as a decent, honourable politician. And, as has since been revealed by the Daily Telegraph in an age where MPs try to blag the biggest plasma TV possible on the taxpayer's tab, Mullins makes do with a black-and-white set, because all he watches is the news. If only there were more like him (minus the Blair bit).