Margaret Thatcher Vol 3: Herself Alone by Charles Moore (Allen Lane £35, 1,072 pp)
Margaret Thatcher Vol 3: Herself Alone
by Charles Moore (Allen Lane £35, 1,072 pp)
Political biographies don’t get any better than this. For a start, there’s the thorough research sifting through a million pages of government and personal papers, backed up by in-depth interviews with 300 key players, from world leaders to family.
Then there’s the insight of a seasoned commentator, a master of his brief who also writes with clarity and verve.
But, above all, it’s the balance — something rare when it comes to such a divisive figure as Margaret Thatcher.
Charles Moore is on her side politically, but he presents her honestly, warts and all, as a great leader whose brittle personality made her enemies and led to her downfall.
And, in this final volume of Moore’s authorised biography, covering the years from her record-breaking third election victory in 1987 to her being ousted from office three years later, those colleagues she’d slighted and belittled took their revenge.
Moore captures the tragedy of it all, hubris leading to nemesis. Ambushed into resigning, she left teary-eyed and broken by the sudden loss of power and purpose.
For her remaining years, she woke every morning in despair at the realisation she was no longer prime minister. She would turn on the Today programme and by 10am have come up with a solution to whatever major issue was leading the news. But no one wanted to know.
Thatcher was proof of Enoch Powell’s aphorism that ‘all political lives end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs’. Even a figure as unyielding as the Iron Lady had to bend.
For The Record by David Cameron (William Collins £25, 752pp)
For The Record
by David Cameron (William Collins £25, 752pp)
Remember the coalition? It wasn’t that long ago, but it feels like a different era from the rancour of the past three years. Ah, those blissful days when Dave and Nick stood smiling on the Downing Street lawn like brothers.
That middle ground was where David Cameron felt most at home, as is clear in this very readable and revealing (though long) memoir.
He writes nostalgically of the coalition. ‘I regret we didn’t find a way to extend it,’ he sighs. ‘I often wonder what might have happened had I been able to do so.’
‘What ifs’ like this are the core of the story here.
What if his party hadn’t been racked by division over Europe? What if he hadn’t called the referendum? What if he had managed to squeeze just a teeny concession from Brussels to sway the Leavers into remaining?
Up to that point, it had all been going so well for this essentially decent chap. Born to privilege, yes, but not immune to pain. His chapter on Ivan — ‘our darling eldest son’ with disabilities so profound they make you weep — is a hymn to love, the boy’s death aged six a crushing blow in which ‘the world stopped turning’.
Cameron’s calling card was a liberally-minded One Nation Toryism. It propelled him into Downing Street, where running a government came easily to him as he tackled the economic crisis bequeathed by Labour.
He was young. He was popular. He made things happen. Given all that, the mystery remains why he put it all at risk. Why, with all his misgivings about the EU and the numerous times those running it conspired to steamroller him in negotiations, did he cling to the belief that it was possible to do business with them?
He campaigned for Remain, backing a losing hand for once in his otherwise gilded political life.
May At 10 by Anthony Seldon (Biteback £25, 706pp)
May At 10
by Anthony Seldon (Biteback £25, 706pp)
There used to be a sharp distinction between current affairs and proper history, with history requiring distance and time for reflection. Not any more. It took Anthony Seldon less than four months from Theresa May quitting Downing Street to the publication of this in-depth account of her three-year reign.
Aided by an army of young researchers from the University of Buckingham (where he is vice-chancellor), he grasps the smallest of detail, yet has a practised eye for the bigger picture.
The result is a fast-paced, easy-to-read, fly-on-the-wall analysis of a prime minister who tried her darndest, but could never grind her way out of the mess, much of which was of her own making.
His verdict is scathing. She was the wrong person for the job — a details person, when what was needed after the referendum was clarity, charisma and confidence.
Back in 2016, May had a surprising degree of support, even from Remainers. But then, Seldon says, she blew all that goodwill to end up a figure of derision. ‘We will never know if she might have got a more consensual Brexit through. The point is, she never tried. She saw Brexit as a problem to be solved rather than a historic opportunity to reimagine Britain’s future in a new world.’
The Brexit saga still has a long way to run, and in the end history may be kinder to Theresa May. We will see. For now, though, it is hard not to agree with Seldon that her three years in Downing Street were anything other than a waste.
Siege by Michael Wolff (Little, Brown £20, 352pp)
Siege
by Michael Wolff (Little, Brown £20, 352pp)
Is Donald Trump crazy? Or have his weird ways sent his most vociferous opponents just as mad as he is? Both propositions are possible after reading this book.
How else to explain the lies, inconsistencies, narcissism, megalomania and fakery attributed to the man in the Oval Office?
How else, too, to explain the self-righteous histrionics that overtake accusers like Michael Wolff, fixated on the Trump car crash that, for all his wishful thinking, still hasn’t come?
For a British observer, this gossipy delving into the dirt of Washington makes our politics seem positively wholesome.
This is New Yorker Wolff’s second tilt at Trump, sequel to Fire And Fury, last year’s explosive best-seller. This time, he turns over the President’s second year in office, when he is under investigation for money laundering, fraud, abuse of power and corruption.
Yet nothing sticks. Suddenly he’s off the hook on the charge of conspiring with Russians in the 2016 election, leaving the liberal elite who thought they’d nailed him dumbfounded and despairing.
Trump is triumphant at what he exaggerates as his ‘total exoneration’. He boasts: ‘I scared the s*** out of them. Never, never, never give in.’
Yet the forces determined to get him won’t give up, either. Trump tells an ally: ‘They are going to keep coming after me.’ He’s right. Since this book was written, the Democrats have succeeded in impeaching him over his alleged strong-arming Ukraine to further his own political interests.
Is this the car crash at last? Or with one bound will The Donald yet again be free?