In Chilcot week, this Eagle mustn't land
The Chilcot Report is a timely reminder of why Angela Eagle must not become Labour leader.
If Corbyn has to go, the Party must find someone not tainted with the worst of the Blair years. For Eagle to replace him, after the PR firm Portland Communications, run by Blair adviser Tim Allan, has been running crude stunts designed to destablise Corbyn, would make a mockery of everything we have been through since Blair went.
Eagle was an MP in 2003 and voted for war in Iraq.
She will tell us that, with hindsight, she would have voted differently. But she didn't need hindsight.
War in Iraq: one of three worst foreign policy decisions in last 100 years
The decision to go to war in Iraq ranks alongside Anthony Eden's decision to go to war over Suez, and Neville Chamberlain's deal with Hitler in 1938, as one of the three worst foreign policy decisions of the last 100 years.
But neither Eden nor Chamberlain subsequently profited by their action. Neither of them went around the region selling their consultancy services after they left Downing Street
Read more: War in Iraq: one of three worst foreign policy decisions in last 100 years
Clem Attlee: Labour’s Great Reformer
In this newly revised and updated edition of his acclaimed biography of post-war Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee, Francis Beckett argues that, as the architect of the NHS and the Welfare State, he is one of only two post-war Prime Ministers who can claim to have changed the society in which we live (the other being Margaret Thatcher).
In the years preceding World War II, polarisation within British society was acute. The radicalism of the 1918 generation had spent itself in futile gestures and bitter recriminations, resulting in a minimal change in conditions for the poorest Britons.
In 1945, however, the Labour government, led by Attlee, took office with the skill and the political will to translate socialist aspirations into legislation – to change the way men and women lived, fundamentally, and in a sense irreversibly.
Publication Date: Apr. 2015
RRP: £10.99
320 pp
PB
ISBN: 9781910376065
‘Beckett gets near to the essence of Attlee, and does so in an easy, flowing narrative.’ – Independent
‘More government records have been opened, and Beckett has used them to great effect.’ – The Times
‘An engrossing personal biography of Attlee.’ – History Today
‘The triumph of this work is the author’s success in passing on his love for his subject. By the final chapter…I too liked Attlee, whom I had previously barely known.’ – The Spectator
‘Anyone interested in British history will enjoy Beckett’s book … a slow read in the best possible way.’ – Huffington Post
‘A formidable work of scholarship…draws out the many facets, including the real subtlety, of his character.’ – John Bercow MP
‘In this welcome updated biography, with the benefit of new material, Francis Beckett illuminates Attlee’s tumultuous times, analyses his transformative deeds, and – crucially – reveals the innermost man who is recognised by historians to be Britain’s greatest peacetime Prime Minister.’ – Neil Kinnock
‘By illuminating how he accomplished his gargantuan task, Francis Beckett’s book finally gives the “little fellow” his due. He has written a book that carefully delves into Attlee’s upper middle class but loving and open-minded family background.’ – Dennis Skinner MP
‘I have thoroughly enjoyed [this] biography of Clem Attlee … It will be central to my introductory chapter to the third edition of British Social Trends.’ – Prof A.H. Halsey
Fascist in the Family: The Tragedy of John Beckett M.P
John Beckett was a rising political star. Elected as Labour's youngest M.P. in 1924, he was constantly in the news and tipped for greatness.
But ten years later he was propaganda chief for Mosley’s fascists, and one of Britain’s three best known anti-Semites.
Yet his mother, whom he loved, was a Jew. Her ancestors were Solomons, Isaacs and Jacobsons, originally from Prussia.
He successfully hid his Jewish ancestry all his life – he said his mother’s family were "fisher folk from the east coast." His son, the author of this book, acclaimed political biographer and journalist Francis Beckett, did not discover the truth until John Beckett had been dead for years.
He left Mosley and founded the National Socialist League with William Joyce, later Lord Haw Haw, and spent the war years in prison, considered a danger to the war effort.
For the rest of his life, and all of Francis Beckett’s childhood, John Beckett and his family were closely watched by the security services. Their devious machinations, traced in records only recently released, damaged chiefly his young family.
This is a fascinating and brutally honest account of a troubled man in turbulent times.
Available from 14th Sept 2016, Pre-Order from Amazon
1956: The Year That Changed Britain
Britain and France occupied Suez, and the Soviet Union tanks rolled into Hungary. Nikita Khrushchev's 'secret speech' exposed the crimes of Stalin, and the Royal Court Theatre unveiled John Osborne's Look Back in Anger. Rock 'n' roll music was replacing the gentle pop songs of Mum and Dad's generation, and it was the first full year of independent television.
As post-war assumptions were shattered, the upper middle class was shaken and the communist left was shocked, radical new ideas about sex, skiffle and socialism emerged, and attitudes shifted on an unprecedented scale - precipitated by the decline of Attlee's Britain and the first intimations of Thatcher's.
From politics and conflict to sport and entertainment, this extraordinary book transports us back in time on a whirlwind journey through the history, headlines and happenings of this most momentous of years, vividly capturing the revolutionary spirit of 1956 - the year that changed Britain.