Peter Shore

Political diaries are the raw material of both biography and history. Philip Williams, who has already quarried Gaitskell’s diary for his own massive biography, is not likely to have found significant new material in subsequently editing it for publication, or to have gained new insights. If he has, he has not drawn attention to them. Those who want the Gaitskell story, the man against his times, the man in the round, as seen by a scholar and admirer, will want to read Mr Williams’s own full-length portrait.