The Biggest Thing Since Harry Potter...

...the feeding frenzy over former Prime Minister Tony Blair's memoirs has begun, with the Independent weighing in.

Personally, I'm of two minds about political memoirs, especially those written by politicians themselves. They're usually doorstops, bricks full of minutia that few, if any people are going to be bothered about and there's a lot of tedious self-justification in a desperate attempt to make themselves look as shiny and wonderful as possible as history turns its oftentimes piercing gaze upon them.

They can be annoying. But being a political science major, I'm read more than my lion's share of political biographies, memoirs and tomes and it was interesting, looking through my bookshelves because of all the political biographies I have (and there are many) only two of them were autobiographical in nature:

The Course Of My Life by Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath and
The Midnight Diaries by Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Now, Ted Heath's memoirs were pretty chill and interesting read. The guy loved sailing and if memory served, he liked playing the piano- there was more to his life than politics. I can't recall any juicy details about his feud with Thatcher, but blabbering about stuff like that just didn't really seem to be his style.

And Boris Yeltsin diaries... well, I have no idea why I purchased those. Really and truly. I think I saw a Daily Show sketch where they had Yeltsin firing his cabinet and it was him talking in Russian and for subtitles they did their usual: 'My desk is clean. My desk is green. My desk is clean and green. You're all fired.' At the time, I found that hilarious, so probably just brought it on a whim. I can't say it struck me as being all that insightful.

But my point is this: the truth isn't going to come out when people still remember when Blair was Prime Minister. 50 years from now, sure, there could be some decent biographies on the guy, but these memoirs (as with so many others) are more about correcting and rectifying any holes in a politicians legacy than anything else. So, although Mr. Blair will probably be remembered for a great many things when all is said and done, I'll pass on his memoirs.

I'd prefer to take history's word for it, not his.