The Inside Story of New Labour

Servants of the People

Andrew Rawnsley's Servants of the People is a timely and fascinating look at New Labour. 
 
Every new government promises to represent a new dawn, but for New Labour it was the Covenant that Tony Blair made with Britain. The party that won a landslide victory on May Day 1997 made the special claim that it represented a decisive break with the disappointments of the old left and the old right: its Third Way would transcend both. Having fashioned an extraordinarily wide coalition to secure power, New Labour would hold it as Servants of the People. Was that a grandiloquent way of saying the government would be enslaved to the opinion polls? Or has Tony Blair been pursuing a strategic plan, breathtaking in its audacity, to remake the political landscape of Britain in the third millennium? 
 
'Downing Street is said to be 'furious' at this book - and it is easy to understand why. It is the first meticulous chronicle of all that has happened since that bright May Day three years ago which first brought the Blair government to office' Anthony Howard, Sunday Times 
 
'Riveting ... the Government's dirty washing has been well and truly hung out in public' Rachel Sylvester, Daily Telegraph 
 
Andrew Rawnsley is associate editor and chief political commentator for the Observer. For many years he presented BBC Radio 4's Sunday evening Westminster Hour, and he has also made a number of highly acclaimed television documentaries.

Andrew Rawnsley is Associate Editor and chief political columnist for the Observer. He has also made a string of critically acclaimed television programmes for Channel 4 and presents Radio 4's Westminster Hour. He lives in London.

'Downing Street is said to be 'furious' at this book - and it is easy to understand why. It is the first meticulous chronicle of all that has happened since that bright May Day three years ago which first brought the Blair government to office'  Anthony Howard, Sunday Times

Andrew Rawnsley

Andrew Rawnsley's bestselling book lifts the lid on the second half of New Labour's spell in office, with riveting inside accounts of all the key events from 9/11 and the Iraq War to the financial crisis and the parliamentary expenses scandal; and entertaining portraits of the main players as Rawnsley takes us through the triumphs and tribulations of New Labour as well as the astonishing feuds and reconciliations between Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson. 
 
This paperback edition contains two revealing new chapters on the extraordinary events surrounding the 2010 General Election and its aftermath.

Andrew Rawnsley

Books by Andrew Rawnsley

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter