Alastair Campbell's memoirs could be worth a lot of money. Not only does he know where the bodies are buried, he buried many of them.

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

One has to live with the ignominy of a garish sticker slapped over one's face, proclaiming '?Ǭ£5, or more off' from the very beginning.

Two temptations that impair the value of their work inevitably beset public men who write memoirs. One is a tendency to reconstruct the past to suit the present views and feelings of the writer; the other is a natual desire to set his own part in affairs in a pleasing light.