BOOKBUSTER REVIEW
Diary of an MP’s Wife:
Inside and Outside Power
By Sasha Swire
Published by Little Brown, 2020
Review by Tim Barton
Sasha, born Alexandra Patrusha Mina Nott (a name change reminiscent of our awful PM), is the daughter of ‘Sir’ John Nott, who was MP for St Ives, and Secretary of ‘Defence’ under Thatcher during the Falklands War. She is wife to former Conservative Party MP Sir Hugo Swire, who had several ministerial roles, including Minister for Northern Ireland and Minister for the Foreign Office. You’ll find them in Burke’s Peerage, and some of them, and their scions, in the rolls at Eton. Privileged, much? You bet.
Sasha’s diaries are a fascinating insight into our supposed ‘superiors’, including ‘the Chipping Norton set’, amongst whom you’ll find ex-PM David Cameron. In a spooky reflection of Trumpland, Swire claims Cameron once said to her, “The scent you are wearing is affecting my pheromones. It makes me want to grab you and push you into the bushes and give you one.” Charming, no?
After the debacle of alleged ‘anti-Semitism in the Labour Party’, with all the damage that did, it is interesting that she reports Corbyn was ready to appoint a Minister for Jews if he became PM. Her telling comment: ‘My God, the Jewish lobby will be throwing the kitchen sink at this one!’ Holocaust Educational Trust chief executive, Karen Pollock, was not the only one who criticised “the casual, blasé use” of the term “Jewish lobby”. Now, let’s say there’s no smoke without fire, but let’s note the fire is not where the media convinced certain sections of the electorate it could be found, eh? To add a bit of fuel to that fire, Swire also claims an “investigation into the Jewish lobby infiltrating parliament” was being conducted by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, under Crispin Blunt MP.
This is a book about the past which is simultaneously about the present
On a more mundane level, but an illuminating one, Swire and her milieu are exposed as being even more philistine than listening to Michael Gove might have had you believe. Interestingly, Amber Rudd almost (but not quite) comes off well in Swire’s account – though that is not Swire’s intent, as she mocks her over a shopping spree they took together that, in fact, shows herself in a bad light. Not that she, or the over-privileged entitled she mixes with, would see that. I was not a fan of either Rudd or of ex-PM Theresa May, but for all their faults, they come across in these diaries as considerably less repulsive than the Swires, Goves, Rees-Moggs, Johnsons, and Camerons – albeit unwittingly.
The name-dropping in Swire’s diaries is revealing, you could add a lot of names to a ‘little black book’ (inscribed, ‘come the revolution’) reading it, following the rank odour of vile spidery webs of nepotism illuminated here, and could expand it even more if you added Barbara Amiel’s memoir, Friends & Enemies, to your reading list. Venal, shallow, smug, narcissistic, over-privileged, entitled, and very much in charge. If anyone tells you there is no ‘elite’ ruling Britain, that ‘we’ got ‘our’ country back, or that these people who are in charge are deserving, or have anything you could mistake for ‘merit’… show them Swire’s diaries.
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