Perceptive, witty and sure of himself

In the Thick of It: The Private Diaries of a Minister by Alan Duncan HarperCollins, £25

THE MORNING I SUCCEEDED Sir Alan Duncan as Minister of State for Europe, I was ushered into his impressive former quarters at the Foreign Office, the sort of room in which you can safely land a light aircraft. There I was shown a huge and empty bookcase with row upon row of naked shelves. This, I was told, had been Sir Alan’s “glory wall” where over the years of his occupation he amassed and displayed a vast array of personal photographs with the world’s various democrats, demagogues and dictators.

Now that his diaries covering his years at the FCO have been published, several of these photos have been translated into