On May 1st 1997, Paddy Ashdown knew that any hope of a formal alliance with the Labour Party had been buried in Tony Blair's landslide election victory. This second volume of The Ashdown Diaries concerns the period from May 1997 until July 1999, and features Ashdown's talks with Tony Blair on proportional representation, the edgy co-operation between the two men during the first two years of Labour's administration, Ashdown's continued involvement in the Balkan wars and the last days of his leadership.