Before marrying a man, always check he doesn't want to become an MP. At least, that's Sasha Swire's advice, having done precisely the opposite.
These are her diaries of what happened next: life as a candidate's wife, as one constituency after another had to be wooed, charmed and somehow persuaded to send her husband to Westminster - and, once there, help position him for power in a new court.
What could go wrong? Quite a lot, actually. A David-and-Goliath battle with a political big beast in the shape of Michael Portillo. A vindictive MP reluctant to pass on the baton. The endless struggle to restart the Tory engine on the damp spark plugs of moribund associations and their geriatric members. Dipsomaniac helpers. Then there's the small matter of keeping the family in check - not least a majestic mother-in-law and an over-opinionated father.
Amid the chaos comes plenty of unsolicited advice, from meddling constituency matrons to men with unchanging views in a fast-changing world. Next up, the Westminster worm farm, and a generation of politicians beginning to wriggle into the light - among them David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson. Somewhere in the mêlée, Swire suffers a brief attack of political vapours and tries to become a candidate herself - only to find a member of the Johnson clan blocking her path.
Funny, indiscreet and candid, Diary of a Candidate's Wife is part political comedy, part survival manual and part anatomy of ambition. The rest, as they say, is history.
