John McTernan
Downing Street 101
The Prime Ministers: Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to May
By Steve Richards
Atlantic Books 456pp £20 order from our bookshop
Steve Richards’s new book is an engaging survey of modern prime ministers. These leaders – from Harold Wilson to Theresa May, whose defenestration is alluded to in skilful late additions – qualify as modern in two regards. First, they are figures of the television age (the more recent ones are also victims of the social media era). Second, they are all individuals whom Richards ‘knew directly or observed closely’. As a distinguished and influential political journalist and commentator, he has written about, interviewed and spent time with most of them.
At a time when prime ministers seem to be coming along far more frequently than before (four since 2009, compared to only one, Tony Blair, in the decade before), this is a useful work. But as the subtitle indicates, The Prime Ministers is a book with higher ambitions than mere reportage. Throughout, Richards pulls out what he takes as the lessons for leadership from the actions and instincts, triumphs and disasters of the individuals whose careers he recounts.
The book opens with a chapter on Harold Wilson that sets the tone for the rest of the book. This is a relaxed account – there are few footnotes to distract from the narrative and Richards is generous in his observations. His opening remark is typical of the whole: ‘Harold
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'We must all "shoot down the canard", McManus writes, that the World Cup is going to a nation "that doesn’t know or appreciate the Beautiful Game".'
Barnaby Crowcroft on the rise of Qatar.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/full-of-gas
Delighted to make my debut in @Lit_Review with a review of Philip Short's heavyweight new bio, Putin: His Life and Times
(Yes, it's behind a paywall, but newspapers and magazines need to earn money too...)
https://literaryreview.co.uk/vlad-the-invader
'As we examined more and more data from the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters ... we were amazed to find that there is almost never a case for permanently moving people out of the contaminated area after a big nuclear accident.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying