Mandelson - to buy or not to buy?

So, the memoirs of the Dark Lord of Foy and Hartlepool are out tomorrow, following serialisation and a delightful TV ad campaign by the Times.

I'm tempted to buy. I'm a bit of a fan of political memoirs, albeit only the top-drawer ones which (necessarily) only come out after major changes of leadership or government. So I have on my shelves the memoirs of Lawson, Howe, Heseltine, Heath, Major and of course the Blessed Margaret, but I haven't bothered with any personal memoirs since. (I have picked up a few of Peter Hennessy's excellent books on the workings of government, e.g. The Prime Minister, The Secret State and Cabinets and the Bomb, along with Jim Naughtie's The Rivals).

But the demise of New Labour means that we have a bumper crop of memoirs to look forward to, starting with Mandelson's.

What holds me back is the thought of helping to enrich these folks still further. (BTW I haven't paid a penny so far as the only part of the serialisation I've seen was in a copy of the Times picked up for free in a lounge at LHR.)

I've already decided that Blair is so filthy rich that I'll wait until I can pick up his tome as a cheap paperback. Campbell is clearly trying to milk it - one volume of edited diaries, to be followed up by multiple volumes (one so far) of the unexpurgated version. Sod him, he can wait for any money from me until they're all out in one cheap paperback omnibus edition (and if that never happens, small loss - he was only one of the hired help, after all).

But Mandy's book put me in a bit of a dilemma. However, a bit of thought has led to a decision. All we've seen so far are the salacious bits about who said what to whom. We basically knew all this in outline already, we're just getting confirmation of the details (and I see Campbell is already challenging His Darkness' recollection of events). If this is all that's in the book, I'm not that interested and I'll wait for the paperback.

But if the reviews in the next couple of days show that there is more, I will be much more interested. Was there really a coherent vision that Blair, Brown and Mandelson were pursuing? What were the drivers for Mandelson to go into politics? What, personally, did he want to achieve, and how does he rate his actual achievements? How did his sexuality (and the accidental outing by Matthew Parris) impact things? What has he got to say about the events leading up to his two resignations / sackings?

If Mandelson's book offers some genuine insight into these sorts of questions, I'll happily buy it in hardback and read it over the hols. If not, I'll wait.