The Politician's Child: Growing up in the Public Eye of Modern Britain c. 1970-2000s

“The Politician’s Child” investigates childhoods lived in the public eye of modern British politics, c. 1970s–2000s. It engages with diaries, memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, and newspaper interviews in which former politicians revealed private aspects of their children’s lives in return for a publishing advance on leaving public office. The educational, social, and medical problems that political parents create for their offspring have often been neglected in histories of the family and political life. These are essential to study since they reveal a complex matrix of social and political worlds, which contrast with the public histories of the family that politicians pen.