The race to get the first book out on Starmer’s Labour party and its election triumph has been won by ITV’s deputy political editor Anushka Asthana; her book, Taken as Red, has beaten several forthcoming efforts, including one from Rachel Wearmouth and Tim Ross, and another by Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire (following up on their 2020 effort on Labour under Corbyn).
When I review a book, I tend, about here in the second paragraph, to offer a summary of the work for any potentially interested reader. In truth if you are reading this in LabourList you’re probably fairly well apprised of what’s happened in the last few years of your life (there are still some Usdaw bags of leaflets in the spare room) and don’t need my summary of Asthana’s summary.
But, in case it all passed you by: Starmer firmed up his leadership ambitions while serving in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet and in 2020 became party leader; things started out a bit ropey (insert Hartlepool by-election here) but then they improved. The Tories lost it (control of the economy/ their minds) and Labour climbed and climbed in the polls and ultimately gained a broad but shallow majority three months ago.
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A thread throughout is Starmer’s dual character as leader; he’s described as uncommonly caring and ever professional, but notably ruthless, a trait Asthana illustrates by detailing his treatment of Corbyn era-general secretary Jennie Formby, who was immediately sacked (while undergoing chemotherapy) upon Starmer’s assent to the leadership.
All this is told in the studiedly frictionless prose of the accomplished lobby journalist; if that sounds like a pejorative remark, it isn’t: the easy clip this book has is no mean feat, even if it does make it somewhat difficult to discuss on its literary merits.
Despite styling itself as a book about the recent election and selling itself in part on just how recent the events it discusses are, the greatest insight the book provides comes, I think, in a section taking place almost 20 years ago: that on Morgan McSweeney’s early career, organising for the Lambeth Labour Party at the 2006 local elections. McSweeney is described as a workaholic (but one who loves karaoke) who, through elbow grease and ruthless targeting manages to buck national trends and gain ground on the south London council, aided by, among others, then Lambeth councillor and now cabinet minister Steve Reed.
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The book follows his career on to Dagenham, where McSweeney worked to combat the BNP in the run up to the 2010 general election. His experiences as an organiser forged his belief that Labour was “listening too hard to what he called ‘party stakeholders’ and not listening hard enough to the voters themselves”.
These sections shed genuine light onto the path and views of a man whose name is bandied around endlessly, often with little attention paid to his pre-Starmer career. Another character featuring heavily is Hollie Ridley, who sources have praised highly to Asthana, in a manner highly congruent with her just having ascended to the party’s staff-side highest office (one source even terms her the “most powerful woman in the Labour Party”, which feels like it stretches credibility somewhat).
Taken as Red is full of telling (and, often, amusing) descriptive points – Oliver Dowden is known as Olive to his friends, former Progress director Richard Angell was Steve Reed’s lodger, McSweeney harboured a passionate hatred of left-wing news site The Canary – and provides as thorough an account of Labour’s election victory as you’re likely to find (until the next one comes out).
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