Keir Starmer: The Biography (2024)
by Tom Baldwin
Who is the real Keir Starmer? He described Jeremy Corbyn as his friend and then effectively expelled him from the Labour party a few months later. A man who twice campaigned to stop Brexit who now pledges to make it work, the rising hope of the Milibandite soft left who is now the architect of the Blairite renaissance. This excellent biography, drawing on interviews and access to the Labour leader’s friends, family and inner circle, attempts to answer that question. While the author, Tom Baldwin, a journalist and former Labour spin-doctor, acknowledges that many questions remain — the Starmer enigma — this is a fascinating and engrossing account of the man who is likely to be the UK’s next prime minister.
Beyond the Red Wall: Why Labour Lost, How the Conservatives Won and What Will Happen Next? (2020)
by Deborah Mattinson
Deborah Mattinson, who ran focus groups for Gordon Brown and is now Keir Starmer’s head of strategy, wrote this book shortly after the 2019 election. For an insight into what happened at the last election, and the thinking underpinning much of how Starmer’s Labour party sees the world and what the voters it most values care about, this is a must-read.
For the Record (2019)
by David Cameron
One of the frustrations about this 14-year period of Conservative dominance is that few of its architects have written about it in any detail. An exception is this engaging memoir by former prime minister David Cameron, now foreign secretary. Your tolerance for the lengthy digressions that serve no purpose other than to retell a joke that Cameron was particularly proud of may vary. But this is a vivid and at times inadvertently revealing book by the man who started it all, returning the Tories to office after 13 years in opposition — only to be mired by fights over Europe and ultimately felled by Brexit.
Tony Blair: A Journey (2010)
by Tony Blair
A terrific memoir of Tony Blair’s time in power. Of course, it is not heavy on self-recrimination but as a memoir of what it is like to take power after years in opposition and as a treatise on the frustrations and challenges of modern democratic government it offers a unique and insightful analysis of what Keir Starmer might expect should he win. And Blair’s Labour was more prepared for power than Starmer’s. It is particularly strong on the difficulties of bending the state and Whitehall machine to a leader’s will.
The Right to Rule: Thirteen Years, Five Prime Ministers and the Implosion of the Tories (2023)
by Ben Riley-Smith
The past 14 years have been the story of near-constant Conservative reinvention. In this impeccably sourced insider account, Ben Riley-Smith details the moments when the Conservative party faced crises and emerged as something new. Fans of the Tory party or happy endings are advised to pick it up in hardback, while Labour supporters and people who like a tragedy at the end should wait for the paperback, in which Riley-Smith will tell the story of Rishi Sunak.
Politics on the Edge (2023)
by Rory Stewart
This engaging memoir of life as an MP and a minister between 2010 and 2019 is also a story of just how and why government departments fail and policies don’t get implemented. Charmingly written and engagingly frank.
Growth: A Reckoning (2024)
by Daniel Susskind
Whoever emerges victorious on July 4, one of the items at the top of the immediate to-do list will be how to address Britain’s sluggish economic performance. Economist Daniel Susskind takes a forensic look at the whole issue of growth and what, if anything, can be done to get more of it. Policy wonks may be surprised by his sceptical dismissal of old favourites — investing in education or planning reform and so on — but his call for innovative ways to encourage and apply new ideas is thought-provoking.
All Out War (2016), Fall Out (2017) No Way Out
(2024) by Tim Shipman
Not one but three books — with one more to come — that have become the go-to chronicles of Brexit and its aftermath. The books are unparalleled works of palace intrigue, largely although not exclusively focused on the inner life of the Conservative party. Labour leaders enjoy walk-on parts, and the latest entry in the sequence, No Way Out, features the perspectives of those on the other side of the table in the Brexit talks. The final volume in the quartet, Out, is nominally slated to be published on July 4, but one assumes it will be pushed back until after the election. Whenever it comes, it will be worth reading.
Punch & Judy Politics: An Insiders’ Guide to Prime Minister’s Questions (2018)
by Ayesha Hazarika and Tom Hamilton
Ayesha Hazarika and Tom Hamilton, two former Labour aides whose role included preparing a succession of party leaders for Prime Minister’s Questions, have produced a fascinating history of the most important half an hour in British politics. Drawing on their own experiences, plus interviews with William Hague, David Cameron, Daniel Finkelstein and George Osborne, and Ed Miliband, it is both a great introduction to how politics works but also how Downing Street navigates its relationships with the cabinet.
Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics (2020)
by Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford
In this sweeping account, two Manchester university academics dissect the long road to the vote to leave the EU — along which demographic change and the rise of identity divides transform the landscape, all of it complicated by the breakdown in traditional voting patterns, coalition politics and the Scottish independence question.
The Liberal Democrats: From Hope to Despair to Where? (2023)
by David Cutts, Andrew Russell, Joshua Harry Townsley
A highly detailed and original study of the Liberal Democrats, the perennial third — now fourth — party of British politics. The book by three academics constitutes a wealth of fresh insights into how a minor party can operate in a two-party, first-past-the-post system — with a wealth of insights into how the 2010-15 Conservative-Lib Dem coalition has left a long hangover following the initial jubilation of being in power after so many decades.
Fall of Boris Johnson: The Full Story (2022)
by Sebastian Payne
An intensely well-sourced and readable account of the last days of Boris Johnson, whose fall from power, and the subsequent turn of the Conservative party away from his agenda and approach, is such an important subplot of this election.
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