What Do Sarkozy, Disraeli and Hitler Have in Common?

Did Disraeli really respond "We authors, ma'am," when Queen Victoria gave him a copy of her Highland Journal? The story is so much in character that it deserves to be true. Unfortunately the biographers are unsure. What is certain is that Disraeli himself was that surprisingly rare creature in this or any other age, the senior politician who can write.

It is odd, when you stop and think about it, that most political leaders write so little and so badly, especially in the years when they are struggling for attention and are climbing their way up the greasy pole. Ideas and words, after all, are the hard currency of their trade. And, in defiance of many stereotypes, most politicians remain in some way idealists who think that politics is not solely about getting and holding power. Part of why they are in politics is to promote ideas and projects, to achieve objectives, to do good and change things for the better - purposes which inevitably entail trying to persuade the public and their colleagues that they, pre-eminently among their rivals, have the answers to the questions of the age.

So why are they so often so bad at it? Perhaps it is naive to imagine that politicians would strive to capture ideas in writing that citizens would actively want to read. Perhaps the only talents they need are ruthlessness and pragmatism. Moreover, in the 21st century, there are many other ways of communicating a message. Nevertheless, what George Bush Sr dismissed as "the vision thing" matters too. Yet in Britain fewer politicians than ever even try to give us their "vision thing" in a coherent and readable way.

Disraeli's talent as a novelist sets him apart as a politician who could express himself in print. I think only Churchill, among his successors as prime minister, ever published a novel, although one can imagine others - from Rosebery to Macmillan - who might easily have done. Only Churchill kept up a writing career while actually in office. Yet even when it comes to the real stuff of politics, remarkably few of our leaders have ever tried to gain attention by addressing the key question that faces any party leader of any era: what is wrong with this society - and what should we do about it?

Perhaps this overwhelming absence proves the politicians are right. After all, the most successful British politician of my lifetime, Margaret Thatcher, managed to convey an absolutely clear grasp of what she thought was wrong with Britain and what she intended to do about it without ever writing it down. Conversely, one of the few prime ministers to try to write books about the human condition - Arthur Balfour in his A Defence of Philosophic Doubt - was also one of the least successful. Perhaps our history proves that a practical politician like James Callaghan will always tend to beat an ideas man like Tony Crosland.

In other countries, nevertheless, politicians often see their role differently, though not always with very inspiring results. The beginning of a presidential election contest in the United States heralds fresh books from the hopefuls of sometimes numbing banality. Those who have ground their way through such tomes as John McCain's Faith of my Fathers, or John Kerry's A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America will not relish repeating the experience if John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Rudi Giuliani and Mitt Romney choose to put their views in print.

Occasionally, though, there is an exception. Half a century ago, one of the things that distinguished John Kennedy from his rivals was that he could write as well as speak so well. Today, much of the interest in Barack Obama has been driven by the genuine readability of his two books, the autobiographical Dreams from My Father and the more ruminative The Audacity of Hope. Opponents may dismiss Obama's run for the Democratic nomination as a glorified book tour, but the appeal of the books has played an essential part in solidifying a candidacy that might otherwise seem premature. By writing them, Obama has told Americans a story that lends his candidacy substance and meaning.

An even more striking current example of an exceptionally interesting political credo is Nicolas Sarkozy's Témoignage, which has sold more than 300,000 copies in France since it was published last summer. Now published here under the title Testimony, Sarkozy's book illuminates exactly why he has been so successful in mobilising the centre-right around a candidacy that marks a radical break with traditional Gaullism and why, if the current polls are correct, he is likely to be elected president of France in May.

Whatever you think - or think you think - about Sarkozy, the fact is that he has written a political tract that is hard to put down, or ignore. If nothing else, the sheer egotistical dynamism of the man leaps off the pages. Sarkozy skates over some big issues, like the environment, and occasional passages of his book are pedestrian, while some, but not all, of his views on migrants are aggressive and unpleasant. That said, it is perverse not to recognise that most of his economic and political case for reform of the French state is made with a confidence and clarity that can only consolidate his campaign, and that stands in exhilarating contrast to anything written by any senior politician on this side of the Channel for many years.

A politician who writes an influential book is obviously not, by that fact alone, more admirable or successful than a politician who does not. It that were the case, Adolf Hitler would be a political role model. But a politician with good values and clear ideas who writes a book will be a stronger and better politician than one who does not. Not only will they be able to communicate more clearly and lastingly with the public, but they will also understand their own choices and priorities better themselves. Good writing helps the writer and the reader alike.

Michael Foot once wrote that "Men of power have no time to read; yet the men who do not read are unfit for power." Who is he to talk, some will ask. But the clearer the writer the clearer the doer. Is it an accident that, with the exception of Disraeli's novels, the best book written by a future British prime minister is Clement Attlee's 1937 volume The Labour Party in Perspective? Modern British politics is all too obviously the poorer right now for not having anything like it.