As a political columnist for the Guardian newspaper from 1984 until 2003 Hugo Young must have supped with a fair number of devils, but as this excellent book shows he clearly kept his preverbal long spoon readily at hand. In these newspaper columns covering the period from the fall of Mrs Thatcher until the Iraq war Young maintains a perceptive but detached eye upon the coming and goings of British politics. There are excellent portraits of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, in which Young manages to show how that their contrasted characters where a source of strength at the beginning of their administrations, but became increasingly a source of weakness. Young was clearly a man proud to be called a liberal and he quietly expresses horror as the checks and balances so critical to a free country are slowly cut away. Only towards the end of the book, when perhaps Young began to realise that his own time was running out, does he begin to reveal a hint of anger. Indeed a compelling aspect of these columns is Young's increasing disenchantment and finally disgust and contempt for a 'leader who believes his own reputation to be the core value his country must defend', who has reduced the intelligence services once the 'jewel in the Whitehall apparatus' into 'flexible friend' and finally who reduced the once sovereign state of Great Britain to a thrall of the US. I may not always have agreed with Young's comments, but I certainly can recommend this book. I have a few minor quibbles, particularly I would have liked a short historical introduction to some of the columns that covered more ephemeral issues, but overall I found this book excellent and can highly recommend it.
Atlantic Book (Guardian Books) 336 pages
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