Jerry Hayes 
Review – A Doomed Marriage by Daniel Hannan
When Dan Hannan’s book, A Doomed Marriage: Britain and Europe, arrived through the post I was alarmed to see that it was shrink wrapped in the same way as top… Continue reading
17 Comments
The loneliness of Edwina Currie
Edwina Currie is very much an acquired taste and I am very happy that I acquired it in 1983 when we were both first elected to Parliament. Sassy, saucy, fiendishly… Continue reading
12 Comments
Jeremy Vine’s survival guide
I first knew Jeremy Vine as a very young, charming, earnest and totally driven political correspondent for the BBC in the 1980s. So when I started reading It’s All News… Continue reading
0 CommentsAnother voice: The book no newspaper editor will want you to read
There are so many axes being ground in Tom Watson and Martin Hickman’s fascinating and explosive new book, Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain, that… Continue reading
21 CommentsA man of courage and conviction
Whatever you might think about Peter Hain, he has proved himself to be a man of great personal courage and conviction. Of course, when it comes to being a British… Continue reading
24 CommentsWhy Jeffrey Archer’s books should be banned
Jeffrey Archer is a menace. His books should be pulped and an Act of Parliament passed to ban their sale. They are the Maltesers of publishing. Once you’ve started one… Continue reading
14 Comments
The daughter of the great man
A Daughter’s Tale is the memoir of Mary Soames, Winston Churchill’s youngest daughter. It is remarkable, uplifting, moving and utterly fascinating. Remarkable, because from 18 to 22 she was at… Continue reading
8 CommentsGay pride
Now that the Tory party is about to embark on an unedifying internal spat over gay marriage, I would commend students of political history to read Michael McManus’s beautifully written… Continue reading
32 Comments
A splendid life of crime
Let me nail my colours clearly to the mast: I would prefer to eat my own spleen, or listen to a Gordon Brown speech, than read the memoirs of a… Continue reading
2 CommentsA winter comfort
Robert Sellers and James Hogg’s Little Ern!, the authorised biography of Ernie Wise, is an uplifting, heart-warming and beautifully written book that will act as a comfort blanket recalling cheery… Continue reading
3 CommentsA class act
When John Donne wrote that no man is an island he clearly didn’t have Boris Johnson in mind. Because, if Sonia Purnell’s well documented book, Just Boris, is correct, old… Continue reading
22 CommentsBetter than his party
I have been awaiting a definitive biography of Nick Clegg for a while. And while I’m not entirely sure whether Chris Bowers’ Nick Clegg, The Biography quite gets there, don’t… Continue reading
9 CommentsA politician happy in his own skin
Alistair Darling’s Back from the Brink is not just a compulsive read: it is an essential primer for anyone with aspirations to be Prime Minister or Chancellor. It’s not unlike… Continue reading
16 CommentsMandelson exposed
For those of you who missed the public outing of Peter Mandelson: The Real PM, the remarkably revealing, fly-on-the-turd psychomentary by the gloriously talented Hannah Rothschild, don’t despair, the boy… Continue reading
5 CommentsA riveting read
It is spookily appropriate that I read Chris Mullin’s splendidly candid and revealing 2005-2010 diaries in the aftermath of the Blackberry riots, where dysfunctional families are a popular topic of… Continue reading
18 CommentsEd Miliband isn’t sad, he’s tragic
ED: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader by Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre is a much better book than it has been given credit for. The making… Continue reading
23 CommentsThe Zionist and the Zealot
If anyone wants to attempt an understanding of any conflict they should study history. And if anyone wishes to understand the roots of the problems in the Middle East, and… Continue reading
10 CommentsArcher’s gift
One of the most irritating things about the launch of a Jeffrey Archer book is the high pitched whine of indignation and scorn from that small, bitchy and endangered species,… Continue reading
1 CommentWhatever Next?
Robin Ferrers has written a wonderful and entertaining book about his life. In many ways his is a life of love; of his family, his country and of life… Continue reading
7 CommentsTranscending the Bounds of Awfulness
Jerry Hayes, the former Conservative MP for Harlow and criminal Barrister, returns to The Spectator Arts Blog with his take on Janet Street Porter’s book Don’t Let The B*****ds Get… Continue reading
7 Comments