For The Record

By David Cameron, William Collins, £25

How you feel about David Cameron’s autobiography may depend more on how you feel about the man, his party and the Brexit referendum than the quality of the writing.

To some, it will be an honest account of how an honourable man listened to what the party and the country were saying, while, for others, it will be a self-serving account of trying to solve an internal Tory party problem, which dragged the country into years of mess, with a badly timed vote and poor argument for Remain.

If you are fascinated by politics, understanding the ebb and flow of relationships with friends and colleagues

like George Osborne, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson provides insights into ambition, loyalty, principles and which matters most.

Johnson doesn’t come out of it well. It also provides a window on forming the coalition and major historical moments like tackling situations in Syria and Libya, the Scottish referendum and gay marriage.

Ironically, his feeling that reforming the Tory party to make it more modern and inclusive was what drove him to want to be Prime Minister doesn’t seem to connect with the austerity he imposed, which left huge swathes of the country feeling left behind. While Cameron (left) admits to some of his mistakes, For The Record sometimes falls into the humblebrag, or restating his opinion that he was right.

It will be up to history to decide just how big

those mistakes were.