Paul Routledge

Straining for effect

A saint of self-deprecation, Chris Mullin closed the first volume of his diaries A View from the Foothills ‘contemplating oblivion’ after his dismissal from ministerial office.

issue 02 October 2010

A saint of self-deprecation, Chris Mullin closed the first volume of his diaries A View from the Foothills ‘contemplating oblivion’ after his dismissal from ministerial office.

A saint of self-deprecation, Chris Mullin closed the first volume of his diaries A View from the Foothills ‘contemplating oblivion’ after his dismissal from ministerial office. This was plainly not the case, as the 443 pages of his second volume, Decline & Fall, demonstrate. Whatever the fate of those he writes about with such sardonic charm, obscurity is unlikely to overtake the former Member for Sunderland South, though he will be better remembered for what he wrote than for what he did.

Politicians who thought they knew Mullin were surprised, shocked even, by his witty take on the shortcomings of life at Westminster. They reckoned without his ability to write, and his journalist’s eye for detail.

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