On the backbenches but still in the thick of it, Decline and Fall runs from Chris Mullin’s sacking as a minister by Tony (‘The Man’) Blair in 2005 to the fall of New Labour in May 2010. Here is politics as it really is: entertaining encounters with constituents and conspirators, tantalising glimpses behind the scenes at the courts of Blair and Brown, all set against the background of the global financial crisis and the great Expenses meltdown.

Every bit as funny and insightful as his bestselling first volume A View From The Foothills, these new diaries provide a snapshot of life in the Westminster village. Preparing to step down after twenty-three years as an MP, Mullin wryly observes ‘they say failed politicians make the best diarists, in which case I am in with a chance’.