Diary of an MP's wife

Inside and Outside Power

By: Sasha Swire

Narrated by: Leo Merton

Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Sunday Times Political Book of the Year

A Book of the Year pick in the New Statesman, Financial Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Mail on Sunday and The Times

Pick of 2020 by Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

What is it like to be a wife of a politician in modern-day Britain? Sasha Swire finally lifts the lid.

For more than twenty years she has kept a secret diary detailing the trials and tribulations of being a political plus-one, and gives us a ringside seat at the seismic political events of the last decade. A professional partner and loyal spouse, Swire has strong political opinions herself - sometimes more 'No, Minister' than 'Yes'. She detonates the stereotype of the dutiful wife.

From shenanigans in Budleigh Salterton to state banquets at Buckingham Palace, gun-toting terrorist busters in pizza restaurants to dinners in Downing Street sitting next to Boris Johnson, Devon hedges to partying with City hedgies, she observes the great and the not-so-great at the closest of quarters. The results are painfully revealing and often hilariously funny. Here are the friendships and the fall-outs, the general elections and the leadership contests, the scandals and the rivalries. Swire showed up, shored up and rarely shut up. She also wrote it all down.

Diary of an MP's Wife is a searingly honest, wildly indiscreet and often uproarious account of what life is like in the thick of it.

©2020 Sasha Swire (P)2020 Hachette Audio UK

Critic reviews

"A gossipy, amusing, opinionated account of what it's like to be married to an MP... Good fun and eye-opening." (The Times)

"Riotously candid." (Decca Aitkenhead, Sunday Times)

At least you have to laugh

The book is saved by its somewhat nasty but still hilarious streak of humour. The impression is given that government of a country is carried on through banquets, dinners and award ceremonies, which are of course the part of government where a wife will likely be in attendance. The impression is also very strongly given, in fact practically stated outright, that many government officials including some at the very top are pure creatures of ambition with little interest in policy and an outright desire for the showier forms of recognition such as invitations to events where they might meet members of the royal family.

The reader has a tremendous variety of different voices and creditably imitates the voices and accents of some real people (such as Theresa May). I find that her reading did much to underline the humour, without which the book might have come off as painfully petty much of the time.