Tim has already written this morning about the some fascinating Cabinet papers released today under the thirty-year rule pertaining to the first few months of the Thatcher premiership.
One of the more quirky documents to have been released today is from the tail end of the Callaghan Government. Prime ministerial adviser Bernard Donoughue penned a note to his boss suggesting that he appear on television with celebrities to improve his image.
As the BBC reports:
In the run-up to the election, Labour was far behind in the polls, so when formal campaigning began in April, the party was desperate to find anything that could boost Mr Callaghan's flagging image.
While celebrity campaign endorsements might be more commonly associated with the 21st century or politics across the Atlantic, Mr Donoughue thought the right "public figures" could be very useful.
And in a sign that it is no new phenomenon for personality to be deemed more important than policy, Donoughue's memo also tells Callaghan:
"I still think your wife, children and grandchildren can win us more votes than most of the paragraphs in the manifesto."
* For the sake of younger readers, Proops was for many years the Daily Mirror agony aunt
