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Number Ten

Number Ten

Summary

Number Ten is the brilliantly funny political satire by Sue Townsend, bestselling author of the Adrian Mole series

'Wickedly entertaining. There is a gem on nearly every page. Nothing escapes Townsend's withering pen. Satirical, witty, observant'
Observer
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Behind the doors of the most famous address in the country, all is not well.

Edward Clare was voted into Number Ten after a landslide election victory. But a few years later and it is all going wrong.

The love of the people is gone. The nation is turning against him.

Panicking, Prime Minister Clare enlists the help of Jack Sprat, the policeman on the door of No 10, and sets out to discover what the country really thinks of him.

In disguise, they venture into the great unknown: the mean streets of Great Britain.

And for the first time in years, the Prime Minister experiences everything life in this country has to offer - an English cream tea, the kindness of strangers, waiting for trains that never come and treatment in a hospital.

And at last he remembers some of things he once really cared about . . .
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'Poignant, hilarious, heart-rending, devastating'
New Statesman

'Hilarious. Sue Townsend's laughter is infectious'
Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

Reviews

  • A wickedly entertaining and passionate swipe at New Labour
    The Times

About the author

Sue Townsend

Sue Townsend was, and remains, Britain's favourite comic novelist.

For over thirty years, after the publication of her instant and iconic bestseller The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ in 1982, she made us weep with laughter and pricked the nation's conscience. Seven further volumes of Adrian's diaries followed, and all were highly acclaimed bestsellers.

She also published five other hugely popular novels - including The Queen and I and The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year - as well as writing numerous well-received plays. Remarkably, Sue did not learn to read until she was eight and left school with no qualifications. As beloved by critics as she was by readers the length and breadth of the nation, she chronicled the lives of ordinary people in Britain through times of upheaval and great social change.

She lived in Leicester all her Life, dying in the city that she loved in 2014.
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