Jonathan Raban in the New York Review
Trying to follow the impending British general election from afar, I've been reading The End of the Party: The Rise and Fall of New Labour by Andrew Rawnsley, chief political commentator for the Observer. Eight hundred pages long, and crammed with "inside" political gossip (or credible intelligence, if you prefer), it's a book as hard to admire as it is to put down. Though the text is bespattered with authenticating footnotes (many say no more than "Conversation, Cabinet minister"), it reads like airport fiction. Its flawed (and credible) hero is Tony Blair, its cardboard villain Gordon Brown.
The End of the Party seems to have gone to the printers in November 2009.
The plot of the book then appeared unassailable. David Cameron's Conservatives' lead over Labour in the polls stood at twelve, fifteen, sometimes twenty points, pointing to Brown's humiliation in the 2010 election (which will almost certainly take place on May 6). The commentariat had appointed Cameron as Britain's next prime minister, and Gordon Brown and his party were yesterday's men.
But for the last few months and weeks, the polls have been tightening.
Now read on here
Andy Beckett "What Happens If Cameron Loses?"
Paul Krugman "Has Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saved the world financial system?"
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=963957bb-44cb-4c6c-bd2e-00e28a4c7c18)
Leave a comment