Recess Reading
What an earnest lot we must seem. The ultra pleasant and invariably cheerful David Williamson has done a round up of holiday reading and inspirational tomes as seen by AMs for the Western Mail.
Now I readily confess to enjoying a good thriller– a James Bond or a Sidney Sheldon, for example, though I do not regret my choice of Harper Lee’s moving account of fighting for justice in the American deep south– ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ nor my recommended read of Barack 0bama’s ‘Dreams from my Father’ though I did add in my e mail to David that a dip into a Bill Bryson would be good relaxation for AMs.
Most AMs have rather ‘ mind expanding ‘ choices. I am a fan of our Presiding Officer but when I hear mention of any book by James Joyce and not least Dafydd’s choice of ‘Ulysses’ ( and also anything by Virginia Woolf– not that anybody did opt for her ) I recall the wonderful comment of Dorothy Parker– ‘ this is not a book to be cast aside lightly but rather hurled with great force ‘
Alun Cairns thumbing through a sand gritty copy of Adam Smith’s ‘The Wealth of Nations’ on the front at Porthcawl and Mike German with a thermos of coffee and his unputdownable page turner, John Stuart Mill’s ‘On Liberty’ looking out over the Gwent Levels are mental images to keep hold of but do spare a special thought for Jeff Cuthbert. Now Jeff is a decent enough cove but there can’t have been many belly laughs in his youth in the 60s when his staple reading was Marx, Lenin and Trotsky! He has obviously been saving the lighter stuff for later as he is now half way through ‘Prezza’ , a book I did read this summer along with Cherie Booth’s and Lord Levy’s memoirs of New Labour.
Now Prezza is not just scathing about the Conservatives,Jeff — no hold the front page story there- but also much of the New Labour establishment, the media and quite a lot else too. Gordon and Tony were both at fault and so was Peter and not much time for Alistair either. The real hero of Prezza is not something you have to wait until the last page to discover! JP does not build up an aching tension on that one. I strongly suspect that Pauline is the real though unsung hero.
What is captured by all of these memoirs, however, is that whatever the many shortcomings of Tony Blair’s term as PM ( and there were many ) there was a sense of leadership and direction– the launch of a more moderate Labour party ( Cherie and Prezza ), the seeking of progress in the Middle East (Lord Levy) and in all of them the achievement of a breakthrough in peace in Northern Ireland ( building on work by John Major) but where is the leadership now?– all we have now are the shortcomings ( in spades ) I do agree with Peter Black on the Aberystwyth books by Malcolm Pryce –they are good fun reads and that isn’t just home town loyalty!
What is interesting about both Lord Levy’s account and Cherie Booth’s and as close friend and tennis partner, and spouse respectively they we’re likely to be getting clear insights from Tony Blair is that they both capture ‘the caught in the headlights paralysis’ nature of Gordon Brown’s government before it really became apparent. They were not wrong. ( Prezza was too busy on Prezza to say too much about it )
