That Was Hugo Blythe MP is the memoir, in diary form, of government researcher Alaric Casteele. It is set in a vaguely determined period in the early 2000s at the height of the New Labour project. Casteele’s boss is the Right Honourable Hugo Blythe, who jokingly refers to his department as the Department of Cult (meaning Culture, Media, Sport). Casteele’s background is teaching, latterly at the Benbrook Height College for the Performing Arts. His only rapport there with other teaching staff has been with the head of its IT department, Yan. Yan is a geeky computer buff, who finds it not at all difficult to hack into the world’s major networks – government, military, corporate, private.

Casteele’s new job is as Hugo’s researcher, just as an election is looming. What has in no way qualified Hugo for heading up his ministry is his former role as editor-in-chief of Risposta, a prestigious journal of the arts, politics and culture.

The other, and lower ranking ministers in Blythe’s department are, in order of seniority: the Right Honourable Tamara Sorr MP, who among other matters has responsibilities for women’s issues; the Right Honourable Arabella Jury MP, who is Minister of State; and the Right Honourable Lord McGey of Merridoun, whose seat is in the House of Lords.

Casteele shares an office with Avril Bamber, who researches for Tamara Sorr, and Hayley Moore, who researches for Arabella Jury.

There are dubious goings on that Hugo fails to notice, as his attention is focused on the coming election campaign, and how to tailor his public image. He suffers persistent issues from his past life as a constituency MP, notably his support for and campaign on behalf of someone named Lem, a youngish man convicted and jailed for violent assault, a crime he has always insisted he didn’t commit. Hugo’s association with Lem has not always gone well, which hasn’t helped Hugo massage what is now his fragile public image. Another of Hugo’s associations is with the poet Robert Hailer, a long-standing critic of the New Labour project. Hailer, despite having problems of his own – or perhaps because of – heaps opprobrium on Hugo at any given public opportunity. Hugo is too polite to point out that Hailer, in the past a successful poet, is now trying with little success to make a comeback.

One further worry for Hugo is the feminist, academic, writer and broadcaster Thalia Jardyne. Jardyne is well known for her summary and acerbic treatment of powerful men whenever she meets them in public debate. Blythe is anxious not to come up against her during the election campaign. Much of Casteele’s memoir is devoted to Hugo’s sometimes tortuous efforts to avoid a showdown with Thalia.

All hinges on Blythe’s central problem. One of his ministers is plotting against him, intent on having him sacked. It is Casteele who stumbles on this plot, who comes to suspect Tamara Sorr and Avril Bamber. When it’s hard to establish conclusive evidence of this he asks his old friend Yan at Benbrook to help him intercept Avril’s emails. This provides him with the evidence he needs, but he cannot tell Hugo, this being a level of espionage certain to result, if publicised, in both losing their jobs.

A further problem for Casteele is that his diary is not securely held on his work computer, and soon Avril gains access to it. Casteele is even careless enough that the entire diary falls into the hands of Tamara Sorr, who will be able to lift and leak incriminating excerpts from it, so hastening Hugo’s downfall.

Casteele reasons that if he is able to publish his diary before she can, which includes incriminating material against her, she also will lose her job, and the climax of the novel is this mad scramble – a smear and information war that perhaps neither will win.

The hardback edition of That Was Hugo Blythe MP is published by AN Editions. CentreHouse Press would like to thank AN Editions for the opportunity to represent this title.