Â鶹Éç

An interesting chat this afternoon with the former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown, about his memoirs, A Fortunate Life, for Â鶹Éç Parliament's BOOKtalk. The Lord Ashdown of Norton sub Hamdon (as he now is) has been a marine, a spy, a diplomat, a youth worker, a party leader and the UN Proconsol in Bosnia, trying to knit the shattered former Yugoslav republic into a functional state.

A rich set of life experiences for a recent politician.

The big surprise of his diaries, (published quite a while ago) was the closeness of his cooperation with Tony Blair and his expectation of a full-dress coalition between New Labour and the Lib Dems, after the 1997 election.

And he elaborates a little in this new book. In the interview, he insists he was not suckered by Tony Blair and then smothered inside New Labour's "big tent."

The deal - which he says would have been about a shared agenda, not simply an exercise in putting a few Lib Dem bums on cabinet seats - was ultimately scuppered by the vastness of Labour's landslide, and by the opposition of John Prescott and Gordon Brown. But if it had ever become an active proposal, he still wonders whether his own party would have been prepared to swallow it.

As for Gordon Brown's abortive offer of a Cabinet job as Northern Ireland Secretary, Lord Ashdown thinks the PM made a big mistake in not sounding him out first - rather than putting himself in the position of making an offer and being refused.

Lord Ashdown thinks his future is one of pipe and slippers (and writing a spy thriller, spiced by his experiences as a spook in Geneva) but when tantalised with the prospect of office in a coalition after the next election, those narrowed eyes showed a gleam of interest. He said something suitably modest about not expecting to be called on, but always being at the service of country and party. Maybe there's another chapter to be written in those memoirs, yet.

BOOKtalk is on Â鶹Éç Parliament this weekend at 2045 GMT.

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