Eyewitness 2010

There had been an awareness in the industry for some time that tablet computing devices would be a big deal in 2010, now the iPad was the first to capture the public imagination. It's lived up to the hype, and according to Apple is nevertheless the fastest-selling consumer electronic device ever. I however see people onstage at conferences reading from their iPads or rather than notes, and over the straightway year it will become a much more persuasive consumer proposition: you're going to see them lying around people's kitchens as recipe books or on the sofa as a TV.

It's the first product launch I can recall that has so quickly been transformative to so many industries: this device is going to give new business models to media companies and publishers and make it much easier for people to make money out of their content. Watch this space.

During that week there was a constant risk that my wife would give birth. I remember on the Tuesday, when we were just fleshing out the details, my mobile phone rang. I said to William Hague: "In other words my wife - I'd better take the call and we might have to suspend the talks." As a matter of fact my daughter Isla was born 10 days afterwards the government was formed. That was my high point of 2010.

It was one of the rare lovely days that we had last summer in Eskdale, one of the most beautiful valleys in the Lake District. I received a phone call at the pub asking if I was all right. Harry Berger, who used to be the landlord of the Boot, had been shot in Seascale, and somebody was afraid that it was me.

Call from the police saying they thought the killer

Soon enough we got a call from the police saying they thought the killer was on his way here, and to keep clients in the pub, keep them away from the windows, and for me to try to get anybody in that I could.