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“... his massive diaries, which are a major source for the political history of the past thirty years. Ruth Winstone has edited them for publication and the welcome appearance of the fifth volume completes her task, which she has carried out with unobtrusive skill. She clearly needed to eviscerate the text, publishing less than 10 per cent of the three and a ...”

“... It is not often that a political diary is published in time to influence the events it describes, but it is common enough for politicians to serve present purposes by rearranging light and shade on the historical picture. Christopher Addison, for example, published an edited version of his war diaries in 1934, just as he was trying to cut a figure as a Labour frontbencher ...”

“... When historians come to account for the dégringolade of modern British politics both Tony Benn and Paul Foot will find a place: Benn as actor, Foot as an observer. The two have much in common: both were born into very similar families; both see their lives as a continuing re-education, a casting aside of cultural baggage packed with the detritus of a worn-out social system; both have come to discover a superior morality within socialism and the organised working class ...”

“... 1999 to 2005, though Mullin had kept a journal since John Smith’s death in 1994. His editor, Ruth Winstone, who also edited the Benn diaries, applies a touch of such gossamer lightness that the reader is repeatedly struck by its absence. Personal acquaintances, family and apparatchiks pop up in the narrative, sometimes referred to only by ...”