Charles Hobhouse began his career in British politics in 1892 at the age of thirty. He retired from it twenty-three years later in the middle of the First World War, having achieved Cabinet rank. Hitherto he has remained underrated, but his private diaries, discovered in his house, prove that although his achievements as a politician were modest, as a recorder of Asquith's governments – and indeed a recorder of the cut-and-thrust of Cabinet government at any time – he is very perceptive. He has a remarkably happy style which enables him to sum up a colleague's character and ability with discerning economy. Seen through his eyes many familiar characters in early 20th-century politics suddenly emerge in an unfamiliar light. He has a talent for describing the atmosphere of a crucial meeting, encapsulating the main point at issue and vividly conveying the war in which Cabinet decisions come to be made. Inevitably, he has his prejudices, but so far as it is possible to check he is remarkably free from factual his accounts of Cabinet meetings are consistent with the only other direct account what passed there, namely Asquith's letters to King George V reporting their discussions. Hobhouse usually gives far more detail than the Prime Minister had either time or inclination to give. His presentation of the two hero-villains, Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, his vignettes of Asquith and Kitchener and many lesser figures round out the accepted picture; they are also highly entertaining. It is not too much to say that as a political diarist of the 20th century he is in the top the reader is swept along with him at every stage, thinking his thoughts, feeling his likes and dislikes, meeting the great and the less great.