Politicians are peculiar people. Somewhere in the middle of this imaginatively titled autobiography, Menzies Campbell tells us of the day the News of the World rang to tell him his highborn foxy wife, Elspeth, was having an affair with the then leader of the Liberal party, the boyish and charming David Steel. He then informs us, in some detail, of the various legal mechanisms put into place in order to sue News International (successfully) and prevent other papers from carrying the story, including the names of lawyers and the like. But at no point does he tell us whether or not Elspeth was having an affair with David Steel – we are left to infer that she wasn’t, from his court victory.

He doesn’t tell us how he felt when that call came through, whether or not his suspicions had been aroused, nor what he said when he spoke to Elspeth and Steel himself on the phone, shortly after. He doesn’t even tell us that he questioned Elspeth about it. He must have done, mustn’t he? I mean, if someone rang you and said, sorry mate, but your missus is dobbing the boss, it would at least pique your interest a little, wouldn’t it? I mean in more than a merely legal sense? But maybe that’s the problem with Ming – not that he’s a politician, but that he is a lawyer. Such salacious detail – which the rest of us might call human interest – is extraneous to the case. In fact, there is little that is palpably human at all, just a perfunctory recitation of the facts. Reading this book, you are left with the impression that you are being talked to by an expensive lawyer somewhat beyond your price bracket, who will have to leave very soon because his next lucrative client is waiting outside.

It’s a surprise the publishers let him get away with it because – how can I put this? – I suspect that the world is perhaps less interested in the memoirs of a rather colourless man who briefly led Britain’s third party than in, say, the next Harry Potter book. I do not think that My Autobiography will be flying off the shelves. And so you might have expected an editor at Hodder to say, at some point – “Ming, old chap, why not put something interesting in it?” Because, believe me, a lot of this book is drier than an urn full of crematorium ashes.

The stuff intended to arouse our interest relates to Charles Kennedy, of course, Charlie and the old bottle. Ming makes it clear on the first couple of pages that having suffered a father who drank too much gave him a unique insight into the very real problems suffered by alcoholics. It gave him a “sympathy” towards Kennedy, he suggests – and I’m sure it did, although it was a sympathy mediated by thin-lipped disdain, at the very best equivocal support and, in the end, ruthlessness.

Sympathetic ruthlessness, then. The demon bottle arrives on the very first page of the chapter about Kennedy – which deals with his leadership election – and continues more or less unabated throughout the rest. The leader’s office was chaotic, too, according to Ming. Here’s a taste of the opprobrious tone, from a meeting Kennedy and Campbell were due to have with Yasser Arafat: “First I was asked to join Charles in his office. Then I was told to meet him in his car. When I got to the car, the driver said he had been asked to pick Charles up from his flat. On the way there the mobile phone rang, Charles wanted us to buy him a can of Lilt and a packet of cigarettes. We sat outside Charles’s flat waiting for him to come out . . . Eventually, Charles climbed into the front seat and we drove off to the hotel where Arafat was staying. On the way Charles opened the can of Lilt and raised it to his lips, but he was shaking so much he had to use both hands to hold it steady.” Apparently, Charles had to make his excuses to Arafat to throw up in the toilet every so often.

Ming does allow that Kennedy had “charm” and could be inspirational. Well, indeed; he was the most successful Liberal leader in more than 80 years, popular with his party and the electorate. Far better Charles drunk than Ming sober.

Elsewhere, Campbell is both sharp and arch on his sudden, vindictive and ageist eviction from the leadership. A meeting of the party executive, convened at 5.30pm, heaped vituperation upon the absent leader. At 6pm they were informed that he had resigned, at which point they became effusive in their praise. “My resignation was followed by a canonisation,” he notes, dry as ever.

And there are stray passages where he becomes energised: on his genuine athletic prowess and his battle against cancer. But I still do not know what motivated him to become a Liberal; this is dealt with in one sentence, right at the beginning, and never alluded to again. It seems, like the bar, to have been a good career, is all.

Out of a sort of sadism, I followed my girlfriend around the house reading out some of the dullest passages of the book. “Here’s a bit about the seating arrangements for a meeting and whether Paul Keetch, the MP for Hereford, should be invited,” I’d tell her. At first she listened with amused patience, but later packed a small suitcase and went to stay at her mother’s.

My Autobiography by Menzies Campbell
Hodder £20 pp326

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