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Politicians have always loved writing biographies of fellow politicians. Think of Roy Jenkins’ life of Gladstone, which provides the best analysis, along the way, of the 19th-century Irish question. In our own day William Hague has written cogently about Pitt and also given us an excellent, fair-minded biography of William Wilberforce. One notes that Boris Johnson will write a biography of Churchill (as did Roy Jenkins). Come to think of it, Churchill himself devoted his prodigious energies to writing political history, including a biography of his father. There is evidently something irresistible about judging the political actions of a bygone age with all the superior wisdom that hindsight brings – especially if you are going through something of the same sort yourself. Unlike the voters, the biographer is always right.