Search results for ""biteback publishing""

Long before perma-tanned football agents and TV mega-rights ushered in the age of the multimillionaire player, footballers’ wages were capped – even the game’s biggest names earned barely more than a plumber or electrician. Footballing legends such as Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews shared a bond of borderline penury with the huge crowds they entertained on Saturday afternoons, on pitches that were a world away from the pristine lawns of the game’s modern era. Instead of the gleaming sports cars driven by today’s top players, the stars of yesteryear travelled to matches on public transport and returned to homes every bit as modest as those of their supporters. Players and fans would even sometimes be next-door neighbours in a street of working-class terraced houses. Based on the first-hand accounts of players from a fastdisappearing generation, When Footballers Were Skint delves into the game’s rich heritage and relates the fascinating story of a truly great sporting era.

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To some, they are the graduates grasping the first rung on the ladder to power, to others, the unsung heroes of the British parliamentary system. But whether your notion of parliamentary researchers is more The Thick of It than The West Wing, more Yes Minister than House of Cards, there is no doubt that these individuals play an essential role in keeping the giant (and, let's be honest, slightly creaky) machine that drives British politics from juddering to a halt.Branded bag-carriers while actually performing vital duties like drafting speeches and Parliamentary Questions, handling the media and engaging with constituents online, parliamentary researchers do the dirty work behind the scenes, allowing their bosses to focus on their main job - performing.With the help of case studies and guest writers, Robert Dale, himself a former parliamentary researcher, tells the fascinating story of how the MP's office has developed over recent decades, and combines practical advice with acute personal observations on how to get ahead as a researcher.If you're a graduate looking to take your first step into politics, or simply interested in the job around a third of our current Cabinet had before becoming an MP, How to Be a Parliamentary Researcher offers a compelling insight into how the British political system really operates.

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By 2014, the world had grown weary of Iraq and its troubles. The Americans had all but gone and the media had turned its gaze towards Syria, but Iraq's problems were far from over. That same year, ISIS put Iraq back on the map as they crossed the border from Syria and rampaged through the country, kidnapping, raping and killing, all in the name of enforcing their murderous interpretation of Sharia law. Terror had arrived and was taking the region in its grip. Saddam Hussein, the occupation, sectarian war, corruption and political instability had collectively laid the groundwork for further violence, and Iraqis were about to see the worst of it. It was against this backdrop that Haider al-Abadi became Prime Minister. What would likely be the most formidable task of his life lay ahead of him: to help unify his homeland's fractured military and politics and, slowly, to turn the tide on ISIS, ultimately achieving what once seemed an impossible victory. This is the definitive and fascinating true story of how the people of Iraq took on and eventually defeated ISIS, told by the country's former Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi.

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Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon's political partnership changed the face of Scotland, bringing the country to within 200,000 votes of independence in 2014 and holding sway at Holyrood for more than a decade. Since the referendum, Scottish nationalism has been a movement on the up, but the relationship between the former First Minister and his protegee and successor has broken down. Break-Up tells the inside story of how an alliance that goes back thirty years was ripped apart amid shocking claims of sexual assault, driving a wedge through the once unbreakable unity of the Scottish National Party. With unrivalled access to both camps and the women who made the allegations, and with rigorously fair-minded reporting, journalists David Clegg and Kieran Andrews go behind the headlines to uncover the truth about this extraordinary episode, in a piece of political history that reads like a thriller. This is a jaw-dropping tale of inappropriate behaviour in the highest reaches of power, of lies, distrust and alleged conspiracy, with profound implications not only for Salmond and Sturgeon themselves but for Scotland's governing party and the wider independence campaign. At its heart, it is also a story about how women who voiced concerns about the behaviour of the most powerful man in the country were used as political pawns - and about what that means for the #MeToo movement.

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Veering from the hilarious to the tragic, Andrew Mitchell's tales from the parliamentary jungle make for one of the most entertaining political memoirs in years. From his prep school years, straight out of Evelyn Waugh, through the Army to Cambridge, the City of London and the Palace of Westminster, Mitchell has passed through a series of British institutions at a time of furious social and political change - in the process becoming rather more cynical about the British Establishment. Here, he reflects on the perils and pleasures of loyalty, whether to a party, to individuals or to one's own principles. He brilliantly lifts the lid on the dark arts of the government Whips' Office ('Whipping, like stripping, is best done in private') and reveals how he accidentally started Boris Johnson's political career and later naively backed him to be Prime Minister - an act which rebounded on him spectacularly. Mitchell also writes candidly about the Plebgate fiasco, which led to four police officers being sacked for gross misconduct and in one case imprisoned, while Mitchell himself faced a bill of millions of pounds in legal fees after losing his libel case. Engagingly honest about his ups and downs in politics, Beyond a Fringe is crammed with hilarious political anecdotes and irresistible insider gossip from the heart of Westminster.

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The year is 1987. Having made history by becoming the UK's first female Prime Minister and then driving out the most left-wing manifesto the country has ever seen, Margaret Thatcher faces a climactic third election campaign. Her eight years in power have been pivotal in guiding the UK back onto the path towards prosperity, and as he surveys the scene, David Young, Secretary of State for Employment, can see the fragile seeds of Thatcher's government beginning to grow. But this third election threatens to destroy it all, plunging the nation back into the chaos of union militancy, the three-day week and the Winter of Discontent, when Britain ground to a halt and even the bodies lay unburied. Drafted in to run the campaign, Young knows one thing for certain: the country cannot afford to go back. Written in lucid, powerful prose, Young's remarkable diary of the election that set the UK on course for the next thirty years invites readers into the room with the key players, including the Prime Minister herself. Full of gut-wrenching claustrophobia, tension and paranoia, Inside Thatcher's Last Election reveals the personality clashes that threatened to derail the campaign from the beginning and presents a very different woman from the Thatcher we think we know. For those in the eye of the storm, there was little doubt about what was at stake: the future of Britain's enterprise.

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January, 1953. It is eight years on from the most destructive conflict in human history and the Cold War has entered its most deadly phase. An Iron Curtain has descended across Europe, and hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union have turned hot on the Korean peninsula, as the two powers clash in an intractable and bloody proxy war. Meanwhile, the pace of the nuclear arms race has become frenetic. The Soviet Union has finally tested its own atom bomb, as has Britain. But in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the United States has detonated its first thermonuclear device, dwarfing the destruction unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War. For the first time the Doomsday Clock is set at two minutes to midnight, with the chances of a man-made global apocalypse becoming increasingly likely. As the Cold War powers square up in political and military battles around the globe, every city has become a potential battleground and every citizen a target. 1953 is set to be a year of living dangerously.

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It has been forty years since James Callaghan - the only person to hold all four of the great offices of state - resigned as Leader of the Opposition, bringing to an end over three decades of service on the front bench. Debate still rages over whether Callaghan was a successful Prime Minister. Critics see him variously as holding back the inevitable tide of economic liberalism or betraying the 'socialist' policies on which Labour had been elected (twice) in 1974. Following his downfall in 1979, there were few defenders of his legacy. This vital reassessment explores the context within which Callaghan governed and the policies his administration pursued, inviting the reader to draw their own conclusion as to how his premiership should be remembered. It includes contributions from leading politicians, journalists, advisors and academics, including some of those who knew Callaghan best. As debates over the future of the Labour Party intensify, this illuminating book offers valuable insights into the party's past.

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Do you know your Boosterism from your Backstopectomy? Can you tell Prometheus from Cincinnatus, and if so, do you know what Prime Minister Boris Johnson is trying to say when he namechecks esoteric figures from the classics, quotes obscure phrases from history, or even just plain makes words up? Certainly, Johnson is the most verbose Prime Minister of recent years, the result no doubt of a classical education, a closet full of public-school confidence and a former career as a wordsmith for The Times. Boris, more than perhaps any other leader, knows the importance of words, but he also knows how to have serious fun with them.

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Polarising, combative, unconventional: few embody the fraught nature of British politics today quite like John Bercow. A man who is revered by his one-time opponents and condemned by his former bedfellows, he has traversed the deep chasm between the Conservative right and the liberal left during a career that has never been short of controversy. Thanks to his eventful decade as Speaker of the House of Commons, he is seen by some as a great moderniser; by others, a constitutional arsonist. In this revealing biography, political editor Sebastian Whale tracks Bercow’s journey from his childhood suffering at the hands of bullies, to his membership of the far-right Monday Club, through to his contentious Speakership, taking in bitter confrontations in the Commons, challenges to convention and attempted coups along the way. With the UK’s exit from the EU secured and bullying allegations beginning to resurface, Bercow’s legacy is under fresh scrutiny. Based on exclusive interviews with those close to the heart of Parliament, including both allies and detractors, this is the unvarnished story of John Bercow, one of the most influential political figures of the Brexit age.

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As part of the infamous Double Cross operation, Jewish double agent Renato Levi proved to be one of the Allies' most devastating weapons in the Second World War. ln 1941, with the help of Ml6, Levi built an extensive spy ring in North Africa and the Middle East. But, most remarkably, it was entirely fictitious. This network of imagined informants peddled dangerously false information to Levi's unwitting German handlers. His efforts would distort any enemy estimates of Allied battle plans for the remainder of the war. His communications were infused with just enough truth to be palatable, and just enough imagination to make them irresistible. ln a vacuum of seemingly trustworthy sources, Levi's enemies not only believed in the CHEESE network, as it was codenamed, but they came to depend upon it. And, by the war's conclusion, he could boast of having helped the Allies thwart Rommel in North Africa, as well as diverting whole armies from the D-Day landing sites. He wielded great influence and, as a double agent, he was unrivalled. Until now, Levi's devilish deceptions and feats of derring-do have remained completely hidden. Using recently declassified files, Double Cross in Cairo uncovers the heroic exploits of one of the Second World War's most closely guarded secrets.

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When a senior Cabinet minister dismissed corporate fears over a hard Brexit with a curt `F**k business,' it seemed emblematic of a growing distance between the country's politicians and its wealth creators. Recounted by the founder and chairman of the UK's largest independent lobbying business, Iain Anderson - who has had a ringside seat at the interactions between business and politics since the 2016 referendum - this is the definitive and shocking story of how and why politics and business have become utterly disconnected in the last decade; culminating in the rancour, mistrust and confusion of Brexit. Featuring exclusive and candid interviews with those at the heart of No. 10, the Cabinet and Parliament, and with the foremost business leaders of this Brexit generation, F**K Business portrays the exhaustion felt by all major companies over politics. With unparalleled access to the key players, the book describes how business sought to prepare for Brexit only to be frustrated by the inability of Parliament to set out a clear pathway ahead. But it also points the way ahead for a new relationship and a brighter future. This is essential, often shocking, reading for anyone interested in how Brexit unfolded for Britain's most important economic movers and shakers.

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Bad News is a popular guide that helps you make sense of the news wherever it appears - print, broadcast or online. Peppered with examples from around the world, the book turns a serious subject into an enjoyable read. You will learn as you are entertained. Readers will discover all the tricks they need to work out whether to trust a story based on an anonymous source, when big numbers are really small and when small numbers are really big, why you should ignore what appears behind someone on the TV and much more. You'll even learn why you should always read stories in the Daily Mail backwards and when correlation is causation. But readers will also learn how ill-suited the news is to understanding and interpreting the modern world, even when it comes from honest journalists working for reputable outlets. The news has a role, but readers will learn how to ensure they don't confuse that with understanding the world.

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The start of 2019 is midway between the last presidential inauguration and the next – but will it also prove the halfway point in Donald Trump’s presidency? Following up Hopes and Fears, which set out in compelling detail why America sent Trump to the White House, Half-Time! brings together two years of groundbreaking research, exploring what the voters make of the President’s agenda and character, how they see the issues at stake and – with voices at the far ends of the political spectrum set to dominate the debate – how they are lining up for the 2020 election.

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Delving into an encyclopaedic array of little-known primary sources, William Beaver uncovers a vigorous intelligence function at the heart of Victoria's Empire. A cadre of exceptionally able and dedicated officers, they formed the War Office Intelligence Division, which gave Britain's foreign policy its backbone in the heyday of imperial acquisition. Under Every Leaf is the first major study to examine the seminal role of intelligence gathering and analysis in `England's era'. So well did Great Britain play her hand, it seemed to all the world that, as the Farsi expression goes, `Anywhere a leaf moves, underneath you will find an Englishman.' The historian William Beaver is also a soldier, corporate communicator, arts editor and Anglican priest.

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In Fighting Churchill, Appeasing Hitler Adrian Phillips presents a radical new view of the British policy of appeasement in the late 1930s. No one doubts that appeasement failed, but Phillips shows that it caused active harm - even sabotaging Britain's preparations for war. He goes far further than previous historians in identifying the individuals responsible for a catalogue of miscalculations, deviousness and moral surrender that made the Second World War inevitable, and highlights the alternative policies that might have prevented it. Phillips outlines how Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his chief advisor, Sir Horace Wilson, formed a fatally inept two-man foreign-policy machine that was immune to any objective examination, criticism or assessment - ruthlessly manipulating the media to support appeasement while batting aside policies advocated by Winston Churchill, the most vocal opponent of appeasement. Churchill understood that Hitler was the implacable enemy of peace - and Britain - but Chamberlain and Wilson were terrified that any display of firmness would provoke him. For the first time, Phillips brings to light how Wilson and Churchill had been enemies since an incident early in their careers, and how, eventually, opposing Churchill became an end in itself. Featuring new revelations about the personalities involved and the shameful manipulations and betrayals that went into appeasement, including an attempt to buy Hitler off with a ruthless colonialist deal in Africa, Fighting Churchill, Appeasing Hitler shines a compelling and original light on one of the darkest hours in British diplomatic history.

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Critical Times is the brilliant new collection of acerbic sketches of contemporary political life by The Times's master of satire, Peter Brookes. Brookes, multiple winner of the British Press Awards Cartoonist of the Year, here showcases the stand-out pieces from his opinion-page cartoons in The Times, each up to the minute and breathtaking in its bite and wit. Critical Times subjects our political overlords to the most brutal of roastings, ridiculing those who profess to lead us and holding the mighty to account. Always hilarious and beautifully crafted, these cartoons - from Brexit to Trump, and back again - are the sumptuous evidence of a contemporary genius at work. Seen through the mind of Peter Brookes evidence that we are indeed living through critical times.

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'I have been a campaigner in many human rights causes, some successful, some less so, some failed. My mother once said, 'Anthony, we had such a fine system until you ruined it!' I hope she was wrong.' Over the course of his illustrious, pioneering and sometimes controversial career, Anthony Lester transformed Britain's approach to human rights. As a brave and creative lawyer, and as a peer in the House of Lords, he worked tirelessly to combat abuses of public power and to introduce new legal frameworks for human rights, equality and free speech. In these honest and remarkable personal memoirs, which map the history of human rights in this country over the past half-century, Anthony Lester explores the social conditions and interior circumstances that shaped his life as a relentless and passionate campaigner for equality and justice.

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Barack Obama was the breath of fresh air the Democrats didn’t even realise they needed. Running on a platform of hope, change and progress, he won his first term with a decisive landslide, completely rewriting the rules of politics. So how did we go from Obama to Trump – and how can the Democrats turn the tide? Once his communications director, and now co-host of Pod Save America, Dan Pfeiffer was at Obama’s side through two presidential elections and six years in the White House. Offering up surreal stories from behind the scenes, Pfeiffer explains how Obama navigated the forces that propelled Trump to power, and metes out critical wisdom on how the Democrats can reverse the country’s fate. A funny, thoughtful and humble account of Pfeiffer’s time on the front line of politics, Yes We (Still) Can is not just a memoir but an action plan for those who still dare to hope for change – and for the end of the Trump era.

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By any measure, the story of the Scottish National Party is an extraordinary one.Forced to endure decades of electoral irrelevance since its creation in the 1930s, during which it often found itself grappling with internal debate on strategy, and rebellion from within its own ranks, the SNP virtually swept the board in the 2015 general election, winning all but three of Scotland's fifty-nine seats in Westminster. What's more, under the current leadership of Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP has never been a more important force in the landscape of British politics.The leaders who have stood at its helm during this tumultuous eighty-year history - from Sir Alexander MacEwen to Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond - have steered the SNP vessel with varying degrees of success, but there is no doubt that all have contributed to the shape, purpose and ultimate goal of the party of government we see today.The latest addition to the acclaimed British Political Leaders series, Scottish National Party Leaders examines each of these senior figures for the first time, and is essential reading for anyone curious about how this former fringe party evolved into a political phenomenon, changing not only the face of Scottish politics, but British politics as well.

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