The End of The Party by Andrew Rawnsley
Out this week is the book everyone has been talking about and The Media Book Club was hardly going to ignore it. The End of the Party by Andrew Ranwnsley, is the book that set tongues wagging on the alleged bullying culture at Number 10. I’m not sure that’s much of a revelation to anyone who’s watched The Thick of It on BBC2 but Gordon Brown and his team have been fiercely fighting off the allegations. It is pretty hard to argue with Rawnsley’s credentials. Currently working for The Observer as chief political commentator, his newspaper columns have won him several prestigious awards. The End of the Party follows on from his best-selling book Servants of the People and if the amount of publicity is anything to go by his new book is bound to match that success.
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Tags: andrew rawnsley, end of the party, labour bullying, rise and fall of new labour, servants of the people
5 March, 2010 at 11:54 am |
‘It is pretty hard to argue with Rawnsley’s credentials.’
Public School, Oxbridge, Fleet Street? I don’t call these credentials, I call it privilege.
‘Currently working for The Observer as chief political commentator, his newspaper columns have won him several prestigious awards.’
For what? Ant and Dec have won several prestigious awards too.
8 March, 2010 at 12:21 pm |
Fair point. Rawnsley enjoyed a pretty privileged education – grammar school – scholarships and Cambridge – but his long service in the Fleet Street/Westminster network and the privy relationships he has built up in that time makes his opinions hard to ignore.
Rawnsley has a lot to lose if his claims turned out to be false – I imagine any working relationships he still holds in the Labour camp (at least those on Gordon’s team) may have already been damaged by his “kiss-and-tell”.
Though I have a soft spot for Ant and/or Dec they haven’t won either a British Press Award or Columnist of the Year in the What The Papers Say Awards
15 March, 2010 at 1:22 pm |
I’m a 100 or so pages in to the book now. It’s thrilling reading, I’ve got to admit, and it’s my opinion that Rawnsley is a journalist with integrity.
I’ve blogged about the book here, with a comment piece:
http://josephstashko.com/politics/gordon-brown-aggressive-really/
Be appreciated if you could comment on it with some wise words