Diary of an MP’s Wife

For more than twenty years she has kept a secret diary detailing the trials and tribulations of being a political plus-one and gives us a ringside seat at the seismic political events of the last decade. A professional partner and loyal spouse, Swire have strong political opinions herself – sometimes more ‘No, Minister’ than ‘Yes’. She detonates the stereotype of the dutiful wife.

From shenanigans in Budleigh Salterton to state banquets at Buckingham Palace, gun-toting busters in pizza restaurants to dinners in Downing Street sitting next to Boris Johnson, Devon hedges to partying with City hedgies, she observes the great and the not-so-great at the closest of quarters. The results are painfully revealing and often hilariously funny. Here are the friendships and the fall-outs, the general elections and the leadership contests, the scandals, and the rivalries. Swire showed up, shored up, and rarely shut up. She also wrote it all down.