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BITEBACKPU BLISHING SPRING/SUMMER 2018
W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
THE BRIEFING
SEAN SPICER
As a key player during the election campaign and
transition, and Donald Trump’s press secretary for
the first seven months in the White House, Sean
Spicer found himself in the firing line between
Trump and the press – regularly jousting with the
media and having to explain the President’s policy
decisions and comments to America and the world.
The Briefing taps into Spicer’s first-hand experience
in the front row of the Trump campaign and
presidency, shedding new light on the most
controversial moments, sharing stories of the
£20 personalities involved and, ultimately, setting the
304pp record straight.
Royal hardback
ISBN: 9781785903809
July 2018
Rights: UK
SEAN SPICER served as White House
Press Secretary during the first seven
months of the Trump administration.
Spicer built a decades-long career
in Republican politics, witnessing
and shaping the inner workings of
Washington, DC from every vantage
point – as a House of Representatives
communicator, Assistant U.S. Trade
Representative, Republican National
Committee chief strategist, top
adviser to presidential campaigns,
and, of course, White House
spokesman.
W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
YES WE (STILL) CAN
POLITICS IN THE AGE OF OBAMA,
TWITTER AND TRUMP
DAN PFEIFFER
From Barack Obama’s former communications
director comes a colourful account of how politics,
the media and the internet changed during the
Obama presidency, and how Democrats can fight
back in the Trump era.
The ‘Decade of Obama’ (2007–2017) was one of
massive change that rewrote the rules of politics in
ways that are only now beginning to be understood,
which is why all pundits got the 2016 presidential
£12.99 election wrong). Yes We (Still) Can looks at how
304pp Obama navigated the forces that allowed Trump to
Demy paperback win the White House, becoming one of the most
consequential presidents in American history; why
ISBN: 9781785904295
Trump surprised everyone; and how Democrats can
June 2018 come out on top in the long run.
Rights: UK Comm (excl. CAN and ANZ)
Part political memoir, part blueprint for
DAN PFEIFFER is a co-host of progressives in the Trump era, Yes We (Still) Can is
the popular political podcast an insider’s take on the crazy politics of our time.
Pod Save America. One of Barack Pfeiffer, one of Barack Obama’s longest-serving
Obama’s longest-serving advisers, advisers, reveals never-before-told stories ranging
he was White House director of from Obama’s presidential campaigns to his time in
communications under President the White House, providing readers with an
Obama (2009–2013) and senior in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at life on the front
adviser to the President (2013–2015). line of politics.
W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
NINE CRISES
FIFTY YEARS OF COVERING
THE BRITISH ECONOMY – FROM
DEVALUATION TO BREXIT
WILLIAM KEEGAN
Nine Crises combines the author’s memories of
Chancellors of the Exchequer, Governors of the Bank
of England, influential economists and Fleet Street
legends with vignettes on nine major economic
crises to tell the story of how the British economy
seems to lurch from one disaster to another but
somehow always survives – or at least until now.
In a book peppered with anecdotes and memories
£20 from the author’s widespread political connections,
384pp Keegan draws on his own unparalleled experience
Royal hardback to explore, among others – the 1967 devaluation,
the three-day week, Black Wednesday and the
ISBN: 9781785903045
2008 global financial crisis – and explains why
September 2018 the prospect of Brexit is potentially the biggest
Rights: World crisis he has witnessed in fifty years.
WILLIAM KEEGAN is associate editor An important and timely book, as the spectre of
and economics editor of The Brexit poses an existential threat to the future
Observer. A graduate of Trinity of the British economy.
College, Cambridge, he has
previously held posts with the
Financial Times, Daily Mail and Bank
of England Economic Intelligence
Department. He is visiting Professor
of Journalism at University of Sheffield
and is the author of a variety of
successful books.
W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
LEO
LEO VARADKAR – A VERY
MODERN TAOISEACH
PHILIP RYAN and NIALL O’CONNOR
The emergence of Leo Varadkar in Irish politics and
his election to the post of Taoiseach is a remarkable
tale from any perspective. Journalists Philip Ryan
and Niall O’Connor tell the inside story of how the
son of an Indian immigrant battled against
adversity and with his own sexuality to become the
youngest and first openly gay Prime Minister of the
Republic of Ireland.
This will be the definitive account of how an
£14.99 outspoken young politician has shaped Ireland’s
352pp future by coming out as gay in full view of the
Demy paperback public before going on to orchestrate a secret
two-year campaign which saw him become leader
ISBN: 9781785903700
of the country. Along the way, he put his political
July 2018 career on the line to defend police whistleblowers
Rights: World and survived an internal party purge after he
backed the loser in a failed leadership heave
PHILIP RYAN is political against former Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.
correspondent for the Sunday
Independent, Irish Independent, In the book, family, friends and colleagues have for
Herald and independent.ie. the first time provided an exclusive behind-the-
scenes account of Mr Varadkar’s meteoric rise to
NIALL O’CONNOR is political power. Ryan and O’Connor, both prominent political
correspondent for the Irish correspondents working for Ireland’s biggest
Independent. newspaper group, Independent News and Media,
have spent months analysing Mr Varadkar’s
personal and political background to
comprehensively tell the story of the most
talked-about Irish politician in decades.
W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
MERKEL
ENDGAME
DAVID CHARTER
Angela Merkel is not who you think she is. The
German chancellor was defined by her humanitarian
response to the 2015 migrant crisis. She paid a
high price in public approval and at the ballot box
for opening Germany’s borders. Her unrivalled
authority has gone but it would be a mistake to
consider Merkel has lost her appetite for power.
This timely reappraisal of Europe’s longest-serving
elected leader shows what really happened behind
the scenes of the refugee drama and Merkel’s
scramble to survive its aftermath. It shows how
£20
she remained ruthlessly calculating throughout the
352pp challenges of her re-election campaign in her deter-
Demy hardback mination to preserve her position and her legacy.
ISBN: 9781785904301 To many, Angela Merkel remains an enigma. This
October 2018 book probes behind her carefully constructed façade
Rights: World to give readers the inside story of her historic
return to power and an insight into what she still
DAVID CHARTER is the Berlin bureau aims to achieve as she enters the endgame of her
chief for The Times. He is the author chancellery.
of Au Revoir, Europe; Europe: In or David Charter has been Berlin bureau chief of The
Out and What Has the EU Ever Done Times since 2011. He has contacts at the highest
for Us? He lives in Berlin. levels of German power who have revealed what
really makes Merkel tick.
W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
HALF IN, HALF OUT
PRIME MINISTERS ON EUROPE
ANDREW ADONIS
The decades since the end of the Second World War
have seen massive change sweep across Britain’s
social, cultural and political landscape. Yet
throughout this period, one thing has remained
constant and unchanging: the thorny question of
our relationship with Europe.
Europe, and Britain’s place in or out of it, has
always been a hugely divisive factor – on either side
of the political spectrum – creating warring camps
in both the Labour and Conservative parties.
£20 Famous Europhiles to put their heads above the
288pp parapets over the years have included
Demy hardback
Conservatives Ted Heath and David Cameron, as
well as Tony Blair for Labour, while leading
ISBN: 9781785904349
Europhobes count among their number the former
June 2018 Conservative Prime Ministers Anthony Eden and
Rights: World Margaret Thatcher.
ANDREW ADONIS was an architect of Born out of a series of Oxford University lectures
education reform under Tony Blair, devised by the former director of the No. 10 Policy
serving in the No. 10 Policy Unit and Unit, Andrew Adonis, Half in, Half Out presents a
then as Minister for Schools from comprehensive and enlightening look at Britain’s
1998 until 2008. Prime Ministers of the past seven decades – and
explores their often hugely differing attitudes
towards our neighbours on the other side of the
Channel.
W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
RATHER HIS OWN MAN
IN COURT WITH TYRANTS,
TARTS AND TROUBLEMAKERS
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON
In this witty, engrossing and sometimes poignant
memoir, a sequel to his best-selling The Justice
Game, Geoffrey Robertson charts his progress from
pimply state school-boy to top Old Bailey barrister
and thence onwards and upwards to a leading role
in the struggle for human rights throughout the
world.
He wryly observes the passion of student protests in
Australia in the sixties and his early crusades for
£25 ‘Down Under-dogs’, before leaving on a Rhodes
448pp Scholarship to combat the British establishment,
Royal hardback with the help of John Mortimer (of Rumpole fame).
There are dramatic accounts of fighting for lives on
ISBN: 9781785903977
death row, freeing dissidents and taking on tyrants,
June 2018 armed only with a unique mind and a passion for
Rights: UK justice – on display whenever he boomeranged back
to Australia to conduct Geoffrey Robertson’s
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC has Hypotheticals.
argued many death penalty appeals
at the Privy Council, defended His is an amazing life story of David vs. Goliath
Salman Rushdie and Julian Assange, battles – laugh-out-loud tales filled with romance
prosecuted Hastings Banda and and danger, featuring a cast of characters ranging
represented Human Rights Watch in from General Pinochet to Pee-wee Herman; from
the proceedings against General Malcolm Turnbull to Mike Tyson; from Nigella
Pinochet. He served as first Lawson to Kathy Lette and Julian Assange.
president of the UN war crimes Throughout his exploits – recounted here with
court in Sierra Leone and as a irreverent humour and dashes of true wisdom –
‘distinguished jurist’ on the UN Geoffrey Robertson has remained determinedly
Justice Council (2008-12). independent and his own man. He has also, in
respect of human rights, changed the way we think.
W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL
FROM CRASH TO DEFEAT
DIARIES: VOLUME 7, 2007–2010
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL
Caught in the no man’s land between being a key
figure in Downing Street and the relative anonymity
of the world outside politics, Alastair Campbell finds
himself being pulled in several directions. Having
succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown
wants Campbell at his side. Campbell resists, flooding
his reservoir of guilt as a general election looms
and Brown’s indecision and fluctuating moods
suggest the Labour administration is seriously
threatened by the Tory ‘posh boy’, David Cameron.
£25
608pp Soon Campbell is earning not only praise, but big
Royal hardback money from motivational speaking and writing novels
which darkly reflect the personal mood swings
ISBN: 9781785900853
that continue to concern both him and his family.
September 2018 Serious journalism across platforms old and new
Rights: World puts him back in the public eye and together with
live appearances and a love of sport – his enduring
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL was born in love affair with Burnley Football Club still smoulders
Keighley, Yorkshire in 1957. When – sees him board a celebrity merry-go-round that
Tony Blair became leader of the often leaves him far from his comfort zone.
Labour Party, Campbell worked for
him first as press secretary, then as With politics constantly tugging at his sleeve,
official spokesman and director of he eventually returns to the front line to marshal
communications and strategy from a party in disarray. The intensity of the months
1994 to 2003. He continued to act as leading up to 6 May 2010 is as dramatic as any
an advisor to Mr Blair and the screenplay, with Campbell chronicling Brown’s
Labour Party, including during the struggle to win over a disillusioned nation and then
2005 and subsequent election his dignified departure from the main stage. For
campaigns. Campbell, another chapter closes. So what next?
W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
THE HONOURABLE LADIES
PROFILES OF WOMEN MP s 1918–1996
edited by IAIN DALE and JACQUI SMITH
Biteback Publishing is delighted to announce a
major new project, a two-volume series of
biographies of every female MP ever to be elected to
the House of Commons.
On December 14 1918, Countess Markievicz became
the first woman to be elected to the House of
Commons. She was elected for Sinn Féin, but never
took her seat. Eleven months later, Nancy, Lady
Astor, became the first woman to be elected and
to take her seat. One hundred years later, 454 other
£30 women followed in their stead.
560pp
Royal hardback
The book’s co-editors, Biteback publisher Iain Dale,
and former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, are
ISBN: 9781785902444
commissioning biographical essays on each of the
November 2018 489 ‘Honourable Ladies’. Each of the contributors
Rights: World will be female.
IAIN DALE is managing director of Volume I will contain profiles/biographies of the 169
Biteback Publishing. He presents female MPs to sit in the House of Commons between
the drivetime show on LBC Radio 1918 and 1997 and will be published in hardback
and is winner of the Arqiva Radio in November 2018.
Presenter of the Year award 2013
and 2016. Volume II will contain profiles/biographies of the
320 female MPs first elected between 1997 and
JACQUI SMITH was the Member of 2019 and will be published in November 2019.
Parliament for Redditch from 1997
until 2010, the first female Home
Secretary and the third woman to
hold one of the Great Offices of State.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
PEOPLE LIKE US
MARGARET THATCHER AND ME
CAROLINE SLOCOCK
As a young civil servant, Caroline Slocock became
the first ever female private secretary to any British
Prime Minister, and was at Margaret Thatcher’s side
for the final eighteen months of her premiership. A
left-wing feminist, Slocock was no natural ally
– and yet she became fascinated by the woman
behind the ‘Iron Lady’ façade and by how she dealt
with a world dominated by men.
As events inexorably led to Margaret Thatcher’s
downfall, Slocock observed the vulnerabilities and
£20 contradictions of the woman considered by many to
384pp be the ultimate anti-feminist. When Thatcher
Royal hardback
eventually resigned, brought down by her closest
political allies, Slocock was the only woman present
ISBN: 9781785902246
to witness the astonishing scenes in the Cabinet
April 2018 Room. Had Thatcher been a man, it would have
Rights: World ended very differently, Slocock feels.
CAROLINE SLOCOCK was the first Now, in this vivid first-hand account, based on her
female private secretary at No. 10 diaries from the time and interviews with other key
and was private secretary (home Downing Street personnel, Slocock paints a nuanced
affairs) to Margaret Thatcher and portrait of a woman who to this day is routinely
John Major between 1989 and 1991. demonised in sexist ways. Reflecting on the
challenges women still face in public life, Slocock
concludes that it’s time to rewrite how we portray
powerful women and for women themselves to set
aside politics and accept that Margaret Thatcher
was ‘one of us’.
A remarkable political and personal memoir, People
Like Us charts life inside Thatcher’s No. 10 during
its dying days and reflects on women and power
then and now.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG
DEALING WITH THE BRIGHTON BOMB
STEVE RAMSEY
12 October 1984 is a day seared into British
memory. Early that morning, an IRA bomb –
intended to kill Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet
– exploded inside Brighton’s Grand Hotel. While it
missed the Prime Minister by just a few feet, five
people were killed and thirty-one others injured
– and the world watched in horror.
Amidst this appalling tragedy is the inspiring story
of strong-willed and resilient people who picked up
the pieces and carried on. Far from being cowed by
£12.99 fear, politicians, police officers, firefighters and
240pp hospital staff became the heroes of the day,
B-format hardback
stepping up and getting on with the job at hand.
Indeed, the Conservative Party conference continued
ISBN: 9781785903366
and the government resumed business as usual.
January 2018
Rights: World In Something Has Gone Wrong, journalist Steve
Ramsey speaks to those who were there on the day
A journalist based in Sussex, and involved in its aftermath, many of whom have
STEVE RAMSEY was deputy editor never spoken publicly about it before. Incorporating
of Viva Brighton from 2012 to 2017. fascinating new insights and revelations, Ramsey
His work on this story began in 2015 has produced a unique and vivid portrait of this
as a history article for Viva. He’s shocking event.
currently taking time out to study
for an MSc in psychology.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
BEHIND DIPLOMATIC LINES
RELATIONS WITH MINISTERS
PATRICK R. H. WRIGHT
Behind Diplomatic Lines: Relations with Ministers
opens on a diplomatic crisis. A growing number of
countries are threatening to boycott the
Commonwealth Games in protest of the British
government’s handling of South African apartheid.
And the problems only get worse.
Patrick R. H. Wright was one of the pre-eminent
diplomats of his day, putting him at the forefront of
some of the late twentieth century’s most important
global events. His five years at the Foreign and
£25 Commonwealth Office found him dealing with the
352pp backlash from the Falklands War, the collapse of
Royal hardback
the Soviet Union, strained relations with the EU, the
First Gulf War and, perhaps most challenging of all,
ISBN: 9781785903380
the fire and glares of Prime Minister Margaret
January 2018 Thatcher.
Rights: World
Lord Wright’s diaries are not only an essential
PATRICK R. H. WRIGHT is a retired document of a significant historical period, but an
British diplomat and current member entertaining and honest record of the gossip, the
of the House of Lords as Lord Wright mischievous press and the amusing scenarios that
of Richmond. After National Service in punctuated his days. This is his captivating exposé
the Royal Artillery, he read Classical of the inner dynamics of the Thatcher Cabinet, all
Mods and Greats at Merton College, played out in front of a tumultuous global backdrop.
Oxford. Following appointments as the
British Ambassador to Luxembourg,
Syria and Saudi Arabia (1977–86),
he went on to become the Permanent
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs and Head of HM Diplomatic
Service. He is married to Virginia,
and they have three children and
eight grandchildren.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
FIGHTERS AND QUITTERS
GREAT POLITICAL RESIGNATIONS
THEO BARCLAY
They say the first rule of politics is never to resign.
It seems, however, that Britain’s leaders have all too
often failed – or refused – to heed this sage advice.
Fighters and Quitters charts the scandals,
controversies and cock-ups that obliterated dreams
of high office: from the ex-minister who faked his
death in the 1970s, to Geoffrey Howe’s plot to topple
Margaret Thatcher in the 1990s, Chris Huhne’s
journey from despatch box to jail cell in 2013 and
Damian Green’s demise in the ‘Pestminster’ furore of
£20 2017. Then there are the sex and spy scandals that
336pp heralded doom, from peers busted in bed with
Royal hardback
prostitutes to MPs caught cavorting in public parks
and, of course, the infamous Profumo affair.
ISBN: 9781785901041
February 2018 Who jumped and who was pushed? Who battled to
Rights: World keep their job and who collapsed at the first hint of
pressure? Who returned, Lazarus-like, for a second
THEO BARCLAY is a barrister based act? From humiliating surrenders to principled
in London. Educated at Brasenose departures, Fighters and Quitters lifts the lid on the
College, Oxford, he can often be lives of the politicians who fell on their swords.
found around the Royal Courts of
Justice in his wig and gown.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
PUNCH AND JUDY POLITICS
AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO PRIME
MINISTER’S QUESTIONS
AYESHA HAZARIKA and TOM HAMILTON
Prime Minister’s Questions is the bear pit of British
politics, a unique way of holding the powerful to
account. While it is watched and admired around
the world, it is often hated at home for bringing out
the worst in our politicians. However, despite the
best attempts of successive party leaders to try to
move away from ‘Punch and Judy politics’, PMQs are
here to stay. It sets the agenda, indicates who’s up
and who’s down and, most importantly, defines
Prime Ministers and Leaders of the Opposition.
£20
320pp Ayesha Hazarika and Tom Hamilton spent every
Royal hardback Wednesday morning for five years preparing Ed
Miliband for combat ahead of PMQs, with varying
ISBN: 9781785901843
degrees of success.
May 2018
Rights: World They know what it’s like to prepare a leader for the
most stressful, unforgiving moment of the political
AYESHA HAZARIKA was a special week and they have lived through the drama,
adviser to Gordon Brown, Harriet tension and black humour that goes with being in
Harman and Ed Miliband from 2007 the room. They have seen the highs when a leader
to 2015. She is now a political wins at the despatch box as well as – perhaps more
commentator, broadcaster and often – the lows when they take a beating.
stand-up comedian.
This book lifts the lid on PMQs, reveals the tricks of
TOM HAMILTON worked as a policy the trade from leading politicians and the people
specialist, speechwriter and who prepared them, and takes you behind the
political adviser for ten years after scenes of some of the biggest PMQs moments.
completing a PhD in theology and
having no idea what to do with it. Part history, part inside account, this book is an
entertaining and honest guide to one of the most
loved, feared and loathed features of British politics
by two people who know just how tough it can be.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
HOW TO STEAL A COUNTRY
STATE CAPTURE AND HOPES FOR
THE FUTURE IN SOUTH AFRICA
ROBIN RENWICK
The vertiginous decline in political leadership from
Nelson Mandela to Jacob Zuma has engulfed South
Africa in a serious crisis over the past ‘lost decade’.
Based on his personal experience of the key
protagonists, former British ambassador to
South Africa Lord Renwick introduces the reader
to an astonishing array of rogues and villains,
ministers taken captive, crimebusters who are
criminals, investigators who don’t investigate,
prosecutors who don’t prosecute, red berets,
£18.99 black hearts and compulsive liars, alongside
320pp some heroes and an authentic heroine.
Demy hardback
The book reads like a crime novel as Renwick
ISBN: 9781785903618
explores the ingenuity, audacity and impunity
April 2018 with which the South African state has been looted
Rights: World on an unimaginable scale, and how Bell Pottinger,
KPMG, McKinsey and others became complicit in
LORD RENWICK was the British this process.
ambassador in South Africa when
Nelson Mandela was released But, in the end, this is an uplifting story, as a
from jail. He is the author of Helen remarkable press, judiciary and civil society combined
Suzman and The End of Apartheid: to ‘save South Africa’ and its constitution under
Diary of a Revolution. serious threat. Now, as Cyril Ramaphosa takes the
reins, How to Steal a Country looks ahead to a
brighter future, though Ramaphosa will find that
his greatest challenges are within his own party.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
THE NEW SERFDOM
THE TRIUMPH OF CONSERVATIVE IDEAS
AND HOW TO DEFEAT THEM
ANGELA EAGLE and IMRAN AHMED
Great Britain is one of the wealthiest, most
successful nations in the world. We live longer,
we consume more and we produce more than ever
before. But many people today feel that the idea
that if you work hard and play by the rules you
will get on in life is actually a cruel joke. Britain
is suffering with declines in home ownership,
employment security, real wages and confidence
that our politicians can make our lives better.
£12.99 The authors identify the origins of this malaise in
400pp the politics of the 1970s and 1980s, as countries
Demy paperback around the world, led by Margaret Thatcher in
Britain and Ronald Reagan in the US, gave the whip
ISBN: 9781785903137
hand to those who own – capital – over those who
April 2018 work – labour.
Rights: World
Demagogues and nationalists, claiming the system
ANGELA EAGLE MP has been the needs to be torn down, have taken advantage both
Labour MP for Wallasey since 1992 in Britain and abroad of the growing rage of those
and has served as a minister, who can see so few take so much from so many in
including in the Treasury, as shadow this new serfdom. Seventy-five years after
minister and as chair of Labour’s Beveridge’s landmark report on the ills of Britain
NEC and National Policy Forum. and twenty-five years after John Smith’s
Commission on Social Justice’s follow-up analysis,
IMRAN AHMED has worked as an the authors take a snapshot of British society today
adviser to senior Labour politicians and show how we got here, asking hard questions of
from across Labour’s political both Tories and New Labour.
spectrum for eight years, including
in three elections and two This is a book for those that believe Britain can do
referendums. Before that he worked better.
in the private sector for ten years.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
JEREMY CORBYN AND THE
STRANGE REBIRTH OF LABOUR
ENGLAND
FRANCIS BECKETT & MARK SEDDON
In 2016, Labour, led by the most left-wing leader
that the party had ever seen, burst into new life.
The Westminster beltway of political insiders, pollsters,
commentators and newspaper proprietors were
completely taken by surprise and left with egg all over
their faces. Few took the trouble to ask how or why
Labour, almost alone amongst parties on the left in
Europe, had regrouped, revived and successfully
turned its back so decisively on Tony Blair and Bill
Clinton’s ‘third way’.
£20
320pp Labour England wasn’t dead. It had been sleeping. For
Royal hardback thirty years it had been kicked into near oblivion, first
ISBN: 9781785904004 by Margaret Thatcher and then by Tony Blair. That
strange, sentimental, almost mystical mix of the trade
September 2018
unions, adult education institutes, powerful Labour
Rights: World councils, the local comprehensive school and the local
Co-op that sustained Labour governments for thirty
FRANCIS BECKETT is an author, years from the 1940s to the 1970s had been in
journalist, broadcaster and retreat. Now, against all the odds, it was back.
contemporary historian. His books
include Gordon Brown, The Great What happened? What will Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour
City Academy Fraud and Clem Atlee. England look like? Francis Beckett and Mark Seddon
are Labour insiders. They know. And they say it will be
MARK SEDDON was editor of an exciting and better place to live.
Tribune for thirteen years and
a member of Labour’s ruling
National Executive Committee
for eight years, before becoming
the first UN & New York correspondent
for Al Jazeera English TV.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
COMRADE CORBYN
UPDATED EDITION
ROSA PRINCE
He is a most unlikely revolutionary: a middle-aged,
middle-class former grammar school-boy who honed
his radicalism on the mean streets of rural Shropshire.
In the summer of 2015, this little-known outsider rode
a wave of popular enthusiasm to win the Labour Party
leadership by a landslide, with a greater mandate
than any British political leader before him.
In the year that followed, Corbyn struggled to retain
his grip on the leadership amid open revolt from his
own MPs. Eighteen months on, this fully updated new
£12.99 edition of the bestselling political biography explores
480pp the striking reversal in Corbyn’s fortunes, setting out
B-format paperback
how this very British iconoclast not only snatched the
leadership of a party he had spent forty years rebelling
ISBN: 9781785903830
against but also, despite insurrection from within his
March 2018 own ranks, galvanised millions to vote for him in the
Rights: World 2017 general election.
ROSA PRINCE is the author of Engaging, clear-sighted and above all revealing,
Theresa May: The Enigmatic Prime Comrade Corbyn explores the extraordinary story of the
Minister (Biteback, 2017), Comrade most unexpected leader in modern British politics.
Corbyn: A Very Unlikely Coup: How
Jeremy Corbyn Stormed to the
Labour Leadership (Biteback, 2016),
and Standing Down: Interviews with
Retiring MPs (Biteback, 2015).W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
TEN YEARS IN THE DEATH
OF THE LABOUR PARTY
TOM HARRIS
For the first eighteen months of Jeremy Corbyn’s
leadership, Labour MPs were in open revolt. Labour
seemed to be returning to the early 1980s, when
old-school Marxists tried to seize control of the
party, at an appalling electoral cost.
So when Theresa May called a snap election,
it seemed that time was finally up for Labour
– voters would consign it to the history books.
Yet on 8 June 2017, it was the Conservatives
who were left with egg on their faces.
£12.99
336pp But how long can the uneasy peace between
Demy paperback moderate, anti-Corbyn MPs and the leader’s loyal
grassroots activists last? Does Corbyn’s ‘victory’
ISBN: 9781785902239
give cause for celebration? Or is the Labour Party,
March 2018 as generations of voters have known it, finally
Rights: World coming to an end?
TOM HARRIS is a former Labour MP From Gordon Brown’s momentous decision not to
and served as a minister in Tony Blair’s call an election in 2007 and Ed Miliband’s crushing
and Gordon Brown’s governments. defeat in 2015 to the continued rise of Corbynmania,
He is now a columinst for the Daily ex-Labour MP Tom Harris examines the seismic
Telegraph and a political consultant. events in Labour’s recent history and the decisions
that have shaped its fortunes.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
THE PEOPLE’S FLAG
AND THE UNION JACK
AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF
BRITAIN AND THE LABOUR PARTY
GERRY HASSAN and ERIC SHAW
The British Labour Party has been one of the key UK
political institutions for the advancement of social
change in the past century. Yet one critical aspect of
its makeup has always been misunderstood,
underplayed or misrepresented: its Britishness.
Throughout the party’s history, its Britishness has
been an integral part of how it has governed, and
done politics.
£25
Moreover, over the past decade or so, a new mobilising
352pp form of national identity has emerged, one that has
Royal hardback become increasingly problematic for Labour: that of
ISBN: 9781785903861 Englishness. Indeed, there is some evidence that
‘Englishness’ is now displacing working-class identity
October 2018
as the major pull of loyalty and allegiance.
Rights: World
The People’s Flag and the Union Jack argues that
DR GERRY HASSAN is the author and Labour’s Britishness and its ambiguous relationship
editor of over twenty books on with issues of national identity matter more today
Scottish and British politics, including than ever before, and will continue to matter for the
The Strange Death of Labour Scotland foreseeable future, when the UK is in fundamental
(with Eric Shaw), Caledonian crisis and its place in the world and very existence
Dreaming: The Quest for a Different open to doubt.
Scotland and Scottish National Party
Leaders (with James Mitchell).
DR ERIC SHAW is senior lecturer in
politics at the University of Stirling.
Prior to that he was a researcher in
the International Department of the
Labour Party and has written five
books on Labour and British politics.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
THE LEFT’S JEWISH PROBLEM
JEREMY CORBYN, ISRAEL AND
ANTI-SEMITISM – UPDATED EDITION
DAVE RICH
A great deal has happened since the first edition of
The Left’s Jewish Problem came out in 2016. The
Chakrabarti Inquiry into anti-Semitism and other
forms of racism in the Labour Party has been
published; the grip of Labour’s hard left has
strengthened; the leadership has failed to deal with
Ken Livingstone; and other offenders and attitudes
to Jews and anti-Semitism have become a marker of
political difference across national politics.
£12.99 However, while Jeremy Corbyn may have thrown a
352pp harsher spotlight on the crisis, it is by no means a
Demy paperback recent phenomenon.
ISBN: 9781785904271
The widening gulf between British Jews and the
September 2018 anti-Israel left – born out of anti-apartheid
Rights: World campaigns and now allying itself with Islamist
extremists who demand Israel’s destruction – did
DAVE RICH is an associate research not happen overnight or by chance: political
fellow at the Pears Institute for the activists made it happen. This book reveals who
Study of Anti-Semitism, Birkbeck they were, why they chose Palestine and how they
College, University of London, where sold their cause to the left.
he was awarded his PhD in 2015.
He works at the Community Security Based on new academic research into the origins of
Trust (CST), for whom he briefs this phenomenon, combined with the author’s daily
ministers, MPs, civil servants and work observing political extremism, contemporary
police officers about anti-Semitism. hostility to Israel, and anti-Semitism, this book
brings new insight to the left’s increasingly
controversial ‘Jewish problem’.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT
SIOBHÁN FENTON
Twenty years after the Good Friday Agreement,
although Northern Irish politics has avoided
returning to the bloodshed of the Troubles, by every
other metric it has objectively failed. The botched
parliament at Stormont lumbers from crisis to crisis
and has scarcely passed any laws. At the time of
writing, Sinn Féin and the DUP are refusing to share
power and Northern Ireland is facing being run
directly from London.
This remarkable book examines power-sharing and
the peace process in Northern Ireland on the
£12.99 twentieth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement
320pp and asks what it has achieved beyond an end to
violence. Fenton concludes that, although it brought
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an end to bloodshed on Northern Ireland’s streets, it
ISBN: 9781785903731 also failed to create healthy and functional politics.
May 2018
Rights: World The Good Friday Agreement served an important
purpose in 1998, but has since been outpaced by
SIOBHÁN FENTON lives in Belfast, local and global politics. It is no longer fit to
where she reports on British facilitate the peaceful politics it made possible, as
and Northern Irish politics for the current collapse of power-sharing sadly shows.
the UK media. She writes for
The Independent, The Guardian,
New Statesman and The Spectator
and has guest presented for BBC
Radio 4 on Northern Irish politics.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
THE RELUCTANT BILLIONAIRE
THE TRAGIC LIFE OF GERALD
GROSVENOR, SIXTH DUKE OF
WESTMINSTER
TOM QUINN
When Gerald Grosvenor, sixth Duke of Westminster,
died in August 2016, he was one of the world’s richest
men, his fortune estimated at just under £10 billion.
Yet he hated his wealth and spent long periods
suffering from severe depression, much of it brought on
by a feeling that his whole life had been a failure and
that his money had destroyed any chance of happiness.
At the same time, he could be ruthless in running the
£20 business while often feeling he was only a mascot.
320pp
Royal hardback Gerald Grosvenor came into the line of succession
by mere chance – or ‘rotten bad luck’ as he put it.
ISBN: 9781785903168
The third duke was childless and the title passed to
August 2018 a cousin, who became fourth duke in 1963 and
Rights: World then, when he died four years later, to his younger
brother, Gerald’s father, Robert Grosvenor, who lived
TOM QUINN is the author of on an island in Lough Erne where Gerald grew up.
Backstairs Billy: The Life of William
Tallon, the Queen Mother’s Most Tom Quinn interviewed the sixth duke on a number
Devoted Servant; Cocoa at Midnight: of occasions as well as people who knew the duke
The True Story of My Life as a socially or had at various times worked with or for
Housekeeper; The Cook’s Tale: Life him. He discovered a complex man tortured by what
below Stairs as It Really Was and he saw as his failures. He was a man who longed
many more titles. He lives in London. to return to his idyllic rural childhood yet was only
really happy as an adult in the company of call
girls. The book explores the long and often eccentric
history of the Grosvenor family and its wealth, and
the complex means by which that wealth has been
shielded from the taxman as well as the bizarre
life of a man who was that strangest of things:
The Reluctant Billionaire.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
THE KING WHO HAD TO GO
EDWARD VIII, MRS SIMPSON AND
THE HIDDEN POLITICS OF THE
ABDICATION CRISIS
ADRIAN PHILLIPS
Edward VIII’s relationship with Wallis Simpson
created a constitutional crisis that has fascinated
the public for decades. Unwilling to accept the
twice-married American as future Queen of
England, the government was determined: the King
must give up either Mrs Simpson or his crown. The
King’s phone lines were tapped by his own
government, dubious police reports poisoned Mrs
Simpson’s reputation, and threats to sabotage her
£12.99 divorce edged the King towards abdication.
416pp
B-format paperback The hopeless attempts of the King’s allies,
particularly Winston Churchill, to keep him on the
ISBN: 9781785903472
throne were painted as a sinister conspiracy, whilst
February 2018 the King wrecked his own chances by presenting
Rights: World himself as erratic and unreliable. As each side was
overwhelmed by desperation and distrust, Prime
ADRIAN PHILLIPS worked as an Minister Stanley Baldwin fought to steer events to a
investment analyst in London and smooth conclusion.
Frankfurt, with a particular interest
in the political background to In this fascinating behind-the-scenes account of
financial markets for twenty-five the royal abdication crisis of 1936, Adrian Phillips
years. He then took a postgraduate reveals the hidden political machinations and
Master’s in modern history at insidious battles that finally sealed the King’s fate.
Birmingham University, specialising
in the policy machinery at 10
Downing Street during the 1930s.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
EMILY WILDING DAVISON
THE MARTYR SUFFRAGETTE
LUCY FISHER
Emily Wilding Davison was the most famous
suffragette to die in the battle for women’s rights
after she rushed onto the Epsom racecourse in 1913
and collided with the King’s horse.
Her notorious final act of protest has for decades
obscured the extraordinary life she lived and the
impassioned arguments that underpinned her
militancy.
In this centenary year of UK women first receiving
£12.99 the franchise, this biography reveals the true story
288pp of Davison’s life and times.
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A middle-class governess for most of her adulthood,
ISBN: 9781785904127
she pivoted towards violence, vandalism, jail time
July 2018 and force-feeding only in her final years.
Rights: World
Lucy Fisher, a Times journalist, draws on the
LUCY FISHER is senior political suffragette’s own words, contemporary press reports,
correspondent at The Times. local histories and academic scholarship to paint a
Previously she has been political vivid picture of a strange life and a tragic finale.
reporter for the New Statesman and
The Observer, and began her career
in journalism at the Sunday Times.
She lives in London.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
WAR GAMES
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COMBAT
LEO MURRAY
The human brain is hard-wired with a primal
aversion to killing. Amid the horror of war even the
best-trained soldiers can forget their training. Vast
efforts and countless sums have been spent in the
attempt to keep our men fighting. Military
psychologist Leo Murray argues that the real
question is: ‘How do we make the enemy stop
fighting?’
Weaving together intense first-hand accounts of
combat with the hard science of tactical psychology,
£9.99 Murray offers a compelling insight into how war
304pp affects the human mind. War Games is both a
B-format paperback
powerful glimpse through the eyes of our soldiers
and an urgent reminder that the future
ISBN: 9781785903519
of modern warfare lies in understanding how the
February 2018 enemy thinks.
Rights: World
Fascinating and often chilling, this is the story
LEO MURRAY is the nom de plume of how psychology wins wars.
of a military analyst and former
soldier who has spent half his lifetime
studying the psychology of armed
combat. He has interviewed hundreds
of war veterans, young and old, and
worked with some shady collections of
staff officers and war geeks. With a
few exceptions, he has only ever been
shot at by accident or under carefully
controlled laboratory conditions.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
CONFESSIONS OF
A RECOVERING MP
NICK DE BOIS
As a new MP, you walk through the Members’ Lobby
filled with a vision of how you will leave your mark
on both Parliament and the nation, exercising your
power to improve the lives of voters. What you are
almost certainly unaware of is that your
constituents, the government, the press and the
very institution of the Palace of Westminster have
other plans for you.
So it was for Nick de Bois in May 2010 when, with
an unimpressive and insecure majority of 1,692, he
£12.99 began the journey of a lifetime, meeting head-on
320pp the bizarre, the inexplicable, the touching, the
Demy paperback shocking, the vitally important and, thank God, lots
of utter nonsense as well. A humorous, anecdote-
ISBN: 9781785903359
filled romp through the corridors of power,
January 2018 Confessions of a Recovering MP exposes the
Rights: World eccentricities of the Mother of all Parliaments,
reveals the peculiar demands that come with being
NICK DE BOIS was elected at the an MP and explains how to return to civilian life
2010 general election as the when the voters decide your time is up.
Member of Parliament for Enfield
North. He lost the seat at the 2015
general election.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
CONFESSIONS OF A
POLITICAL MAVERICK
AUSTIN MITCHELL
Austin Mitchell is a political maverick. For
thirty-eight years he was a fly in the parliamentary
ointment, a recurring itch on the body politic.
A maverick may annoy the whips, threaten party
discipline and challenge the solemnities of Parliament.
Troublemakers they may well be, but the Commons
would certainly be a duller place without them.
However, Mitchell’s dissidence wasn’t all bitterness
without volume control. Rattling the cage,
£20 swimming against the tide, pursuing honourable
288pp causes and, of course, fighting for his constituency,
Royal hardback Grimsby, proved a rewarding career in itself.
Confessions of a Political Maverick succeeds in
ISBN: 9781785904011
uncovering the realities behind the pretentious
June 2018 parliamentary façade of tradition and the stuffy
Rights: World complacency of Britain’s failing political class.
AUSTIN MITCHELL was Labour MP for Dissenting from the peculiar and highly particular
Grimsby from 1977 until 2015 and is conformity of career politicians dedicated to
a former member of the public climbing the greasy pole can be a lonely role, but it
accounts committee. He was a can also be fun. It certainly was for Austin Mitchell.
journalist at Yorkshire Television
from 1969 to 1977, presenting their
regional news programme Calendar.
He has also worked for the BBC.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
BEHIND THE BLUE LINE
MY FIGHT AGAINST RACISM AND
DISCRIMINATION IN THE POLICE
GURPAL VIRDI
On Wednesday 15 April 1998, Detective Sergeant
Gurpal Singh Virdi was arrested and accused of
sending racist hate mail to himself and ethnic
minority colleagues. Dismissed from the
Metropolitan Police Service, his reputation in ruins,
Virdi took his case to an employment tribunal,
which judged that he had been a victim of racial
discrimination. Completely vindicated, Virdi was
reinstated to the job he loved – but his travails were
far from over. Constantly overlooked for promotion,
£20 he realised that by challenging the Met he had
336pp effectively ended his career.
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Following his retirement from the force and keen to
ISBN: 9781785903212
serve his local community, Virdi decided to run for
March 2018 election as a Labour councillor – but, prior to the
Rights: World election, he was arrested a second time. The
allegations levelled against him were horrifying: he
GURPAL VIRDI grew up in Southall, stood accused of sexually assaulting an underage
where he first became aware of the prisoner nearly thirty years earlier. Yet, when the
inequalities experienced by ethnic case went to trial, a jury took less than fifty minutes
minorities. He decided at a young to clear Virdi of all charges, with the judge noting
age to join the police and was the the likelihood of a conspiracy behind the case. But
first Asian from Hounslow to join the damage had been done.
the Met. During his thirty years’
service, he was very vocal in Behind the Blue Line is Virdi’s deeply shocking
challenging the mistreatment account of how one of Britain’s biggest institutions
of ethnic minority communities. brought the apparatus of the state to bear in a
campaign to destroy the life of one of its own
officers.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
CLEAN BREXIT
WHY LEAVING THE EU
STILL MAKES SENSE
LIAM HALLIGAN and GERARD LYONS
On 23 June 2016, in perhaps the most significant
vote in British history, 17.4 million people decided
that Britain should leave the EU. So what does the
future now hold after this momentous decision?
What will life be like in Britain after we end our
European marriage? Will Brexit precipitate the doom
and gloom that many predict?
Drawing on years of experience at the cutting edge
of economic, business and policy issues, plus
£10.99 extensive discussions with leading politicians and
432pp diplomats across the UK, Europe and the world,
B-format paperback Clean Brexit answers these questions – and more.
ISBN: 9781785904035
Economists Liam Halligan and Gerard Lyons believe
August 2018 great days lie ahead. Brexit is an opportunity to strike
Rights: World deals with the world’s fastest-growing economies,
boosting British trade and job prospects. Freed from
LIAM HALLIGAN has written his weekly the EU’s regulatory stranglehold, the UK can thrive,
‘Economic Agenda’ column in the spreading wealth throughout the whole of the country.
Sunday Telegraph since 2003 and Directly elected MPs will once again have the final say
has been recognised with a British over our laws, borders, taxes and trade negotiations.
Press Award. DR GERARD LYONS
is a leading expert on the world Important, balanced and accessible, Clean Brexit
economy, global financial markets is the ultimate guide to making a success of
and economic and regulatory policy. Britain’s divorce from the EU – and a source of
strength for voters elsewhere in Europe who have
long demanded EU reform but have been rebuffed.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
COLLAPSE
EUROPE AFTER THE EUROPEAN UNION
IAN KEARNS
The European Union hovers near the brink of
collapse. Following the Brexit vote, and amid the
rise of terrorism, a still vulnerable single currency,
the growing threat from Russia, a staggering
refugee crisis and spiralling Euroscepticism, many
have wondered how long the EU can survive. Few,
however, realise just how fragile the current
situation is, or what the consequences of
disintegration would be.
Drawing on his extensive network of senior political,
£12.99 diplomatic, military and business leaders from
320pp across the Continent, Ian Kearns traces the
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scenarios that could lead to the ultimate breakdown
of the union, and charts the catastrophic economic,
ISBN: 9781785902154
political and geopolitical fallout likely to follow.
April 2018
Rights: World Both an urgent warning and a passionate call to
action, Collapse challenges those in power to act
DR IAN KEARNS is co-founder, former now to defend the seven decades of peace and
director and board member of progress that the EU represents.
the European Leadership Network,
a pan-European group of senior
political, military and diplomatic
leaders including former Prime
Ministers, Presidents, Foreign
and Defence Ministers and elite
military figures drawn from across
the Continent.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
THE END OF BRITISH
PARTY POLITICS?
ROGER AWAN-SCULLY
Elections are about choices: when we vote, we pick
from a menu of options offered by political parties. But,
increasingly, voters in the four nations of the United
Kingdom are not only making fundamentally different
choices, they’re looking at very different menus.
In 2017, for the second election in a row, four
different parties came first in the UK’s four nations.
With Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish
voters growing ever more disconnected from one
another, are we nearing the end of British party
£12.99 politics as we know it?
192pp
Demy paperback With timely and insightful analysis, Professor Roger
Awan-Scully, one of the UK’s foremost experts in
ISBN: 9781785903151
devolution and party politics, explores this startling
April 2018 democratic change and investigates the future of
Rights: World the United Kingdom.
ROGER AWAN-SCULLY is Professor
of Political Science at Cardiff
University. An expert on elections
and political representation in
Britain and Europe, he authored a
book called Becoming Europeans?
Attitudes, Behaviour, and Socialization
in the European Parliament.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
WHITE FLAG?
AN EXAMINATION OF THE UK’S
DEFENCE CAPABILITY
MICHAEL ASHCROFT
and ISABEL OAKESHOTT
Britain is at a crossroads. As we leave the EU, we
face a great challenge but also the opportunity to
forge a new identity in an increasingly uncertain
world. Our Armed Forces will be critical to our power
and prosperity.
For centuries, they have been the envy of the world.
Now barely a day passes without reports of
diminishing prowess. The number of Navy workhorse
£20 ships has been halved and the Army reduced to its
320pp smallest size since the Napoleonic Wars. Our
Royal hardback spectacular new aircraft carriers and the F-35
fighter jet programme are mired in controversy.
ISBN: 9781785904103
Meanwhile, the Armed Forces face questions about
September 2018 their purpose. The bitter experiences of Iraq and
Rights: World Afghanistan have undermined the concept of the
military as a ‘force for good.’ Voters are now
LORD ASHCROFT KCMG PC is an sceptical of discretionary wars in faraway places.
international businessman, author Aside from sporadic jihadi attacks, few believe
and philanthropist. there is any real threat to our way of life.
ISABEL OAKESHOTT is an award- Thus defence spending is no longer a public priority.
winning political journalist and Politicians know that there are more votes in
commentator. She was political schools and hospitals, even while they deploy our
editor of the Sunday Times and troops onto the streets after suicide bombings or,
co-wrote Farmageddon with Philip more recently, a nerve agent attack. In what feels
Lymbery and Inside Out with Peter like peacetime, no wonder top brass have to justify
Watt. big budgets.
Are we still masters of our own destiny, or have we
run up the white flag?W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
WINNING HERE
MY CAMPAIGNING LIFE:
MEMOIRS VOLUME I
CHRIS RENNARD
Chris Rennard’s long relationship with the Liberal
Democrats began in the 1960s when a compassionate
Liberal councillor helped his disabled mother
receive her widowed mothers’ allowance. By his
twenties, Rennard was the most successful election
campaigner his party has ever known.
Masterminding a series of spectacular by-election
victories that rescued the party’s fortunes, Rennard
went on to drive a huge increase in their tally of
£25 MPs, more than tripling the headcount between
448pp 1988 and 2006, and enabling them subsequently to
Royal hardback enter a coalition government. Liberal leaders Paddy
Ashdown, Charles Kennedy, Menzies Campbell and
ISBN: 9781785903373
Nick Clegg would all rely on him as the party grew
January 2018 to the peak of its success.
Rights: World
Spanning his first thirty years in politics, this first
CHRIS RENNARD was made a life volume of memoirs follows Rennard’s meteoric
peer on the recommendation of ascent to become the most formidable and feared
Paddy Ashdown in 1999. He was and political campaigner of his generation, and offers a
director of campaigns & elections candid account of the Liberal Democrats’ highs and
for the Liberal Democrats from 1989 lows, from Paddy Ashdown’s hopes for coalition with
to 2003, and chief executive of the Tony Blair, to Charles Kennedy’s enforced resignation.
party from 2003 to 2009.
Part memoir, part contemporary history, Winning Here
offers both a fascinating insight into how election
campaigns are really fought and won, and a frank
insider’s view of the characters and events that
have defined British politics over the past forty years.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
RUTH DAVIDSON
AND THE RESURGENCE
OF THE SCOTTISH TORIES
ANDREW LIDDLE
In just five years, Ruth Davidson has risen to
become one of the most senior Tory politicians
in the country. First elected in 2011, she won a
surprise leadership victory and is now at the head
of the official opposition at the Scottish Parliament.
A lesbian, kick-boxing former Territorial Army reservist,
Ruth Davidson has broken the mould of both Tory
and Scottish politics. Despite the consensus that
the Conservative Party was dead in Scotland, she
£18.99 has now made the Tories bigger than Labour, and
336pp has even been touted as a future Prime Minister.
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Yet little is known of Ms Davidson and her
ISBN: 9781785901744
achievements outside of Scotland. The time is right
May 2018 for her remarkable story to be told. With the tantalising
Rights: World possibility of another Scottish independence
referendum thrown up by Brexit, Davidson’s profile
ANDREW LIDDLE is lead reporter for is only going to become more prominent as she
The Courier in Dundee. He graduated provides the chief opposition.
from the University of St Andrews in
2012 with an MA in modern history, This book examines how Ruth Davidson revitalised
where he was also chairman of the the toxic Tory brand in Scotland and asks what the
Labour Society. He lives in Dundee. future holds both in Scotland and beyond for this
very impressive young politician.W W W.BITEBACK PUBLISHING.COM
GUILTY UNTIL
PROVEN INNOCENT
THE CRISIS IN OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM
JON ROBINS
Whenever a miscarriage of justice hits the headlines,
it is tempting to dismiss it as an anomaly – a minor
hiccup in an otherwise healthy judicial system.
Yet the cases of injustice that feature in this book
reveal that they are not just minor hiccups, but
symptoms of a chronic illness plaguing the British
legal system.
Massive underfunding, catastrophic failures in
policing and shoddy legal representation have all
£12.99
contributed to a deepening crisis – one that the
368pp watchdog set up for the very purpose of investigating
Demy paperback miscarriages of justice has done precious little to
ISBN: 9781785903694
remedy. Indeed, little has changed since the ‘bad
old days’ of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six.
May 2018
Rights: World Award-winning journalist Jon Robins lifts the lid on
Britain’s legal scandals and exposes the disturbing
JON ROBINS is a freelance journalist complacency that has led to many innocent people
and author. He writes regularly being deemed guilty, either in the eyes of the law or
for The Times, The Observer, in the court of public opinion.
The Guardian, The Independent,
Financial Times, Daily Express
and Sunday Express. He has won
the Bar Council’s Legal Journalist
of the Year twice and was shortlisted
for last year’s Criminal Justice
Alliance awards.You can also read
