JACK Straw will include no broken confidences or tittle-tattle in his memoirs if he ever gets round to publishing them.
The Blackburn MP and Foreign Secretary came under fire from MPs on a Commons committee cross-examining him about his attempts to block two books by former diplomats.
They asked him if he intended to publish his own memories, and he said he might.
Mr Straw was immediately accused of hypocrisy for on the one hand savaging former Washington ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer and ex- Uzbekistan envoy Craig Murray over their tell-all books and considering writing his own.
But today Mr Straw said: "I have not decided if I am going to write a book yet. I might but if I do it will be in due time and will observe all the rules.
"If I do it will be memoirs not diaries like my predecessor as Blackburn MP Barbara Castle. I don't keep a diary.
"The problem with Sir Christopher's book was that it broke confidences.
"The case of Mr Murray's book is still ongoing. With Sir Christopher's book, I take responsibility for not trying to legally stop it because he did not actually break any rules. He just broke confidences and filled it full of tittle-tattle."
"If I do publish my memoirs I shall not break any confidences and there will be no tittle-tattle but I hope it will be amusing."
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