"Get In" by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund

This is an immensely detailed and apparently well-sourced account of the rise to power of Sir Keir Starmer. It starts with his selection as a prospective parliamentary candidate and goes through until the end of his first hundred days as Prime Minister. For the most part it focuses on his kitchen cabinet advisors and takes their perspective. It is not difficult to tell that Morgan McSweeney is a major source, as is Shabana Mahood and Sue Grey, possibly Sir Keir himself. But there are no footnotes and the briefings are all anonymous. This is necessary in a book such as this in order to present a vaguely full account, but it inevitably must call into question just how objective it is. McSweeney comes out of this as an extraordinarily significant figure - very much the power behind the throne - but also as someone who is far-sighted, pretty well right about everything and something of a genius political operator. Sue Grey, by contrast is portrayed as a rather pathetic creature who has no idea about what she was doing. Not the whole story I would wager.

I found it utterly fascinating but also deeply depressing as this book has supposedly been written by journalists who are broadly sympathetic to the Starmer project. The key players, including the Prime Minister himself, are portrayed as being completely ruthless, autocratic and manipulative. They are very relaxed about not always telling the truth, hold in contempt those who makes misjudgments or oppose them on anything, and appear not to have any really strong ideological principles to guide them. The suggestion is that these men seek power for power's sake. They also swear a great deal

The first part of the book is focused on Labour Party factional infighting as McSweeney and Starmer (and that is very much the order of precedence according to these authors) set about gaining control of the Labour Party and removing from power anyone with vaguely left-wing principles. It takes time, but the Corbynistas are all one by one metaphorically castrated and other potential challengers, like Deputy PM Angela Raynor, put firmly back in their boxes. This section is particularly interesting in demonstrating how events such as by elections can have an enormous impact on internal party power struggles.

The second half then moves on to focus on the way Keir Starmer's very successfully capitalised on Tory government misfortunes, gained a huge opinion poll lead and prepared for the election campaign of 2024. At the end the blame for the disastrous first few weeks in power is firmly placed at the door of Sue Grey. I found this to be an unconvincing and very one-sided account. Little more than unpleasant scapegoating really, and further evidence that the people who now govern us are very effective political operators but also pretty vile human beings. They are, I suspect, gradually building up a veritable army of enemies who will one day take huge pleasure in taking sweet revenge.

A dam good read though which I would recommend to all UK political geeks.