"A Life at the Centre" is the absorbing story of a man who combined a wide social and literary milieu with a political panache that nearly made him Prime Minister. Jenkins led a life of variety and drama, from Enigma ciphers in the war, to the Chancellorship of Oxford and the Exchequer, as well as putting a liberalising stamp on the 1960s as a reforming Home Secretary. Jenkins, increasingly disillusioned by the leftward drift of the Labour Party, resigned and moved to become President of the European Union. On his return from Brussels, he helped launch the Social Democratic Party, returned to Parliament after victory at Glasgow Hillhead, and then went on to the House of Lords, where he was leader of the Liberal Democrats.