My guest is Cathy Ashton.

Baroness Ashton.

Baroness Ashton of up Holland was the European Union's first High Representative for Foreign Security Policy, a post she held from 2009 to 2014.

And she's just written a book, and then what, inside stories of 21st century diplomacy, a kind of memoir of a time as a high representative.

Welcome to the podcast, Cathy.

Thank you, Paul.

My first question to you actually is quite a simple one.

Why did you wait so long to write this?

You left the post almost 10 years ago.

Why did you keep yourself so much time before putting pen to paper?

Well, these stories are based on recordings that my husband made with me at the time

because I didn't keep a diary.

And over the years, I've transcribed them and then found that people asked me about what happened.

And sometimes you need a length of time to have gone by

before you can really write about that period it's better because I obviously

talk about people that I was negotiating with or working with at the time though

I'm not horrible about anybody but as importantly it seemed to me it was a good moment to

reflect on what had gone before because sadly pretty much all of the issues I

talk about are still to be resolved right well we'll come to the nitty-gritty

you book in a second again about some of the background to you getting the job in the

first place, because it was quite an interesting, and some would say quite a controversial time,

actually. People weren't expecting, let's be frank, and you'd be the first admit it, your nomination

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