Liberally minded

So it was that I came to be speaking to him a week later on an erratic mobile phone as he and his aide drove down the M1 - presumably heading for somewhere drier.

To give him his due, he was apologetic about cancelling his visit - and concerned about the floods. "It must have been absolutely dreadful," he said, in that politician's tone: the one that seems to ooze sympathy and reassurance in equal measure.

His book - all 600 pages of it, and this is only the first volume - covers the period from July 28 1988, the day Ashdown was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats, to the 1997 election which swept Labour to power.

The reading public has probably had enough of political diaries to last them a lifetime: and few of the diarists have had the wit or sparkle of an Alan Clark. So why do we need Mr Ashdown's version? (It feels odd, somehow, to refer to him as Sir Paddy.)

First of all, he says smoothly, he wrote the diaries for his grandchildren, not for publication. "I wanted them to know what it was like to be in politics." It was only much later, he says, towards the end of his time as party leader, that he began to think about the possibility of publishing.

He hoped to achieve two things through publication of the diaries, he said: first, to show how close he and Tony Blair came to creating a 'more rational politics of working together'.

"I also hoped that in an age when people don't have much respect for politicians they will at least be able to see what a politician's life is like - both the triumphs and the pain."

The trouble with Mr Ashdown's diaries is that you don't get much sense of this at all.

Possibly the most painful episode in his time as leader was what The Sun dubbed the Paddy Pantsdown affair - the revelation that Ashdown had a fling with his secretary Tricia Howard before he became party leader.

If these diaries were really to reveal what it is like to be a politician - an ordinary human being, subject to the same temptations as any of us - then surely it should be here.

And what do we get? News of the affair first began to leak out on January 28, 1992. Ashdown was having an election strategy meeting with Des Wilson when the phone rang.

"It was a tearful Tricia Howard saying that the News of the World had been round to question her about our past relationship," the diary entry records.

"My heart sank. I tried not to show my shock to Des." Later, he phoned her back and "promised that I would put Andrew Phillips Ashdown's solicitor in touch with her tomorrow... Spent most of the night awake, worrying."

No hint here that the woman he had had a fling with meant much to him: no soul-searching, no questioning of himself. A clinical footnote explains who Tricia Howard was and says "we had had a brief affair which ended when she finished working for me in 1986".

The next few entries are pre-occupied with attempts to 'manage' the affair. Good news, Ashdown records the next day: 'The News of the World are working from a stolen document, so there is a good chance we can get an injunction'. A "low", "wan and ill-looking" Tricia Howard is told by Des Wilson, meanwhile, that during the general election she should not communicate with Ashdown at all.

Not a word about the pain caused to Tricia Howard - and very little acknowledgement of the pain caused to his own wife, Jane. Which is not to say he didn't feel that pain: just that there's little evidence here.

"Watched the news and then to bed," he records in his clipped style on February 3. "This is where Jane's composure collapsed. We spent three hours talking the whole thing through. She fell asleep in due course. I had a terrible night." And, a couple of days later: "To bed at about 11.00, but couldn't sleep. Jane very disturbed again. God, the damage you do. I now have to steel myself for tomorrow's press."

The man who emerges appears to be lacking in emotional intelligence: more concerned to manage the consequences of his actions than address them. Correct or not, it's an impression reinforced when I ask him about the painful times during his leadership.

He immediately begins to talk about the failure of the "project" - one of the main themes of his time as Lib Dem leader, the attempt to forge a working alliance with Labour to create a new, consensual, centre-left politics.

Important stuff, no doubt - but on the evidence of the diaries the decision by Tony Blair after his 1997 election success that he didn't need the Lib Dems after all seems to have hurt Ashdown more than the pain he caused to people he presumably loved. Which seems odd, but that's politicians for you.

u The Ashdown Diaries are published by Allen Lane priced £20. Mr Ashdown will be at WH Smith in Coney Street, York to sign copies of his book tomorrow at 2pm.PADDY Ashdown was due to have been in York last week to promote his political memoirs, catchingly titled The Ashdown Diaries. Clearly, the thought of getting his feet wet - he is, after all, a veteran of the Special Boat Service - was a little too much. An Ashdown aide rang to explain that because of the floods, he'd been advised not to come. His visit, she said, would be re-arranged: but in the meantime he'd be happy to do an interview by telephone.

So it was that I came to be speaking to him a week later on an erratic mobile phone as he and his aide drove down the M1 - presumably heading for somewhere drier.

To give him his due, he was apologetic about cancelling his visit - and concerned about the floods. "It must have been absolutely dreadful," he said, in that politician's tone: the one that seems to ooze sympathy and reassurance in equal measure.

His book - all 600 pages of it, and this is only the first volume - covers the period from July 28 1988, the day Ashdown was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats, to the 1997 election which swept Labour to power.

The reading public has probably had enough of political diaries to last them a lifetime: and few of the diarists have had the wit or sparkle of an Alan Clark. So why do we need Mr Ashdown's version? (It feels odd, somehow, to refer to him as Sir Paddy.)

First of all, he says smoothly, he wrote the diaries for his grandchildren, not for publication. "I wanted them to know what it was like to be in politics." It was only much later, he says, towards the end of his time as party leader, that he began to think about the possibility of publishing.

He hoped to achieve two things through publication of the diaries, he said: first, to show how close he and Tony Blair came to creating a 'more rational politics of working together'.

"I also hoped that in an age when people don't have much respect for politicians they will at least be able to see what a politician's life is like - both the triumphs and the pain."

The trouble with Mr Ashdown's diaries is that you don't get much sense of this at all.

Possibly the most painful episode in his time as leader was what The Sun dubbed the Paddy Pantsdown affair - the revelation that Ashdown had a fling with his secretary Tricia Howard before he became party leader.

If these diaries were really to reveal what it is like to be a politician - an ordinary human being, subject to the same temptations as any of us - then surely it should be here.

And what do we get? News of the affair first began to leak out on January 28, 1992. Ashdown was having an election strategy meeting with Des Wilson when the phone rang.

"It was a tearful Tricia Howard saying that the News of the World had been round to question her about our past relationship," the diary entry records.

"My heart sank. I tried not to show my shock to Des." Later, he phoned her back and "promised that I would put Andrew Phillips Ashdown's solicitor in touch with her tomorrow... Spent most of the night awake, worrying."

No hint here that the woman he had had a fling with meant much to him: no soul-searching, no questioning of himself. A clinical footnote explains who Tricia Howard was and says "we had had a brief affair which ended when she finished working for me in 1986".

The next few entries are pre-occupied with attempts to 'manage' the affair. Good news, Ashdown records the next day: 'The News of the World are working from a stolen document, so there is a good chance we can get an injunction'. A "low", "wan and ill-looking" Tricia Howard is told by Des Wilson, meanwhile, that during the general election she should not communicate with Ashdown at all.

Not a word about the pain caused to Tricia Howard - and very little acknowledgement of the pain caused to his own wife, Jane. Which is not to say he didn't feel that pain: just that there's little evidence here.

"Watched the news and then to bed," he records in his clipped style on February 3. "This is where Jane's composure collapsed. We spent three hours talking the whole thing through. She fell asleep in due course. I had a terrible night." And, a couple of days later: "To bed at about 11.00, but couldn't sleep. Jane very disturbed again. God, the damage you do. I now have to steel myself for tomorrow's press."

The man who emerges appears to be lacking in emotional intelligence: more concerned to manage the consequences of his actions than address them. Correct or not, it's an impression reinforced when I ask him about the painful times during his leadership.

He immediately begins to talk about the failure of the "project" - one of the main themes of his time as Lib Dem leader, the attempt to forge a working alliance with Labour to create a new, consensual, centre-left politics.

Important stuff, no doubt - but on the evidence of the diaries the decision by Tony Blair after his 1997 election success that he didn't need the Lib Dems after all seems to have hurt Ashdown more than the pain he caused to people he presumably loved. Which seems odd, but that's politicians for you.

u The Ashdown Diaries are published by Allen Lane priced £20. Mr Ashdown will be at WH Smith in Coney Street, York to sign copies of his book tomorrow at 2pm.