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The Searchers: Five Rebels, Their Dream of a Different Britain, and Their Many Enemies
From the acclaimed author of Promised You a Miracle and When the Lights Went Out, the untold story of British politics in modern times, through the triumphs and disasters of its five most radical figures.
'A breath of fresh a vivid eye for detail meets narrative pacing that seems effortless.' Morgan Jones, LabourList
‘An absorbing history of Labour’s radical left.’ - Jason Cowley, Observer
The Searchers should be studied closely by anyone with a stake in British politics.’ - Patrick Maguire, The Times
In the great revolutionary year of 1968, Tony Benn was a respectable Labour minister in his forties, and he was restless. While new social movements were shaking up Britain and much of the world, Westminster politics seemed stuck. It was time, he decided, for a different approach.
Over the next half century, the radicalized Benn helped forge a new left in Britain. He was joined by four other politicians, who would become comrades, collaborators and Ken Livingstone, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn.
For Andy Beckett, the story of these admired and loathed political explorers - both their sudden breakthroughs and long stretches in the wilderness - is the untold story of British politics in modern times. As he reveals, their project to create a radically more equal, liberal and democratic Britain has been much more influential than electoral history might suggest, and can be seen from the shape of our city life to the causes of our culture wars.
For their many detractors, this influence was and remains a form of extremism that must be stamped out. But as these five searchers believed, in politics there is no total victory - nor total defeat.
'A breath of fresh a vivid eye for detail meets narrative pacing that seems effortless.' Morgan Jones, LabourList
‘An absorbing history of Labour’s radical left.’ - Jason Cowley, Observer
The Searchers should be studied closely by anyone with a stake in British politics.’ - Patrick Maguire, The Times
In the great revolutionary year of 1968, Tony Benn was a respectable Labour minister in his forties, and he was restless. While new social movements were shaking up Britain and much of the world, Westminster politics seemed stuck. It was time, he decided, for a different approach.
Over the next half century, the radicalized Benn helped forge a new left in Britain. He was joined by four other politicians, who would become comrades, collaborators and Ken Livingstone, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn.
For Andy Beckett, the story of these admired and loathed political explorers - both their sudden breakthroughs and long stretches in the wilderness - is the untold story of British politics in modern times. As he reveals, their project to create a radically more equal, liberal and democratic Britain has been much more influential than electoral history might suggest, and can be seen from the shape of our city life to the causes of our culture wars.
For their many detractors, this influence was and remains a form of extremism that must be stamped out. But as these five searchers believed, in politics there is no total victory - nor total defeat.
548 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 2, 2024
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About the author
Andy Beckett
13 books14 followersAndy Beckett was born in 1969. He studied modern history at Oxford University and journalism at the University of California in Berkeley. He is a feature writer at the Guardian, and also writes for the London Review of Books and the New York Times magazine. He lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 22, 2024
This is, among other things, a group biography of five leftwing Labour Party politicians: Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. There were differences between these politicians but also sufficient common ground to view them as a group. Their politics combined the traditional socialist concern with class inequality with identity politics and social liberalism. They championed multiculturalism, feminism, gay rights, environmentalism and community action. This grassroots, slightly anarchic and coalition building form of politics was in stark contrast to the centralised, top-down and often socially conservative and paternalistic approach of traditional Labourism. All five were routinely vilified by the media but also, and more revealingly, their own party hierarchy. (Despite my use of the past tense I’m happy to report that four of these politicians are alive and three of them still in Parliament. Tony Benn passed away in 2014 at the age of 88).
Through the prism of his chosen quintet Andy Beckett provides a vivid and compelling history of the British Labour left from Benn’s radicalisation in the late 1960s, through Livingstone’s pioneering Greater London Council (GLC) in the ‘80s, onto Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader, and beyond. It’s a story which raises fascinating questions about the true nature of political defeat and victory. All of these politicians took the long view, seeing politics as an incremental process of changing attitudes rather than just amassing votes for the installation of a new management team (‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss’. Thank you, Mr Townshend). Tony Benn once remarked, famously or infamously depending on your viewpoint, that far too much attention is paid to the outcomes of general elections. Their real importance, he thought, was as a platform on which to raise alternative ideas about society. Beckett argues that, despite the apparent electoral failure of the left, modern Britain has been shaped just as much by ideas espoused by the politicians in this book - particularly in regard to attitudes towards race, sexuality, and diversity in general - as by Thatcherism and its successors. Although even more economically unequal than it was in the 1960s contemporary Britain is undeniably - ongoing culture wars notwithstanding - much more socially liberal. It might be argued that Beckett overstates the role of the Labour left in bringing about these social and cultural changes but he has a point nonetheless. As he says, pamphlets on the need for diversity in recruitment issued by Livingstone’s allegedly ‘loony’ GLC in the 1980s now ‘read like standard memos from Human Resources’.
The Searchers is highly readable, sympathetic but not uncritical, informative and thoughtful. Beckett’s nuanced approach is a welcome change to the customary bland talk about ‘the death of the left’ and provides fresh perspective on both the past and the present. This is a valuable and timely book which achieves Beckett’s aim of being as much about future possibilities as historic struggles.
Through the prism of his chosen quintet Andy Beckett provides a vivid and compelling history of the British Labour left from Benn’s radicalisation in the late 1960s, through Livingstone’s pioneering Greater London Council (GLC) in the ‘80s, onto Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader, and beyond. It’s a story which raises fascinating questions about the true nature of political defeat and victory. All of these politicians took the long view, seeing politics as an incremental process of changing attitudes rather than just amassing votes for the installation of a new management team (‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss’. Thank you, Mr Townshend). Tony Benn once remarked, famously or infamously depending on your viewpoint, that far too much attention is paid to the outcomes of general elections. Their real importance, he thought, was as a platform on which to raise alternative ideas about society. Beckett argues that, despite the apparent electoral failure of the left, modern Britain has been shaped just as much by ideas espoused by the politicians in this book - particularly in regard to attitudes towards race, sexuality, and diversity in general - as by Thatcherism and its successors. Although even more economically unequal than it was in the 1960s contemporary Britain is undeniably - ongoing culture wars notwithstanding - much more socially liberal. It might be argued that Beckett overstates the role of the Labour left in bringing about these social and cultural changes but he has a point nonetheless. As he says, pamphlets on the need for diversity in recruitment issued by Livingstone’s allegedly ‘loony’ GLC in the 1980s now ‘read like standard memos from Human Resources’.
The Searchers is highly readable, sympathetic but not uncritical, informative and thoughtful. Beckett’s nuanced approach is a welcome change to the customary bland talk about ‘the death of the left’ and provides fresh perspective on both the past and the present. This is a valuable and timely book which achieves Beckett’s aim of being as much about future possibilities as historic struggles.
April 23, 2025
This is an excellent book: comprehensive, gripping and, crucially, fair towards five much-maligned British left-wing politicians. I've admired Beckett's modern history books for a long time, and this is an ideal book for him to write, encompassing his usual mix of interviews, critical thought and independent outlook.
Beckett was apart from the mainstream centrist and right-wing herd in re-evaluating British 1970s history, therefore he is well placed to provide a long view on the lives and careers of Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott. Beckett makes a great case for this broadly New Left democratic socialist group's long term influence on culture and policy being well in advance of their electoral success on a national level. The younger four's persistent success in London is remarkable, but the Corbyn-led Labour ultimately could not find sufficient support outside the big cities to have a real shot at power. Admittedly, their underestimation by opponents and strong, focused campaign in 2017 showed them getting tantalisingly close, but unfortunately there were also clear signs in that election of what happened in 2019: the right being motivated to turn out to stop a redistributive socialist government happening.
Part of the big story Beckett tells is the ruthless manoeuvring of the Labour Right to undermine Benn and Corbyn and ultimately regain control of the party machinery (which was never fully dominated by the Left, really, in 1980-1 or even 2016-8). A Corbyn government in 2017, given McDonnell's shrewd, Livingstone-influenced positioning, is a what-if that remains tantalising. It could have done some good in arresting austerity and reversing some of the toxic legacy of Thatcherism that afflicts us in so many areas - unfair housing, enfeebled trade unions, water and most other privatisations.
Beckett implicitly also makes the key point that Benn's adherence to democracy is crucial. Labour's particular manoeuvring over Brexit in 2019 led Corbyn to seem an inauthentic compromiser. However, Beckett also makes clear that a more left-wing Labour deeply enthused people in the cities, and the party can ill afford to take these voters for granted - or demonise them - if it wants to retain power. In 2024, Labour won a landslide due to Tory collapse, obtaining notably fewer actual votes cast than in 2017 or 2019's defeats.
On a human level, Beckett notes the five politicians' failings, but also their great strengths. The idea that a party moulded in Wes Streeting's or Liz Kendall's image would actively attract large numbers of voters is absurd. Like William Davies has argued, the centre will need support from the left in order to have any chance of defending an open liberal society. Of course, some of them probably would prefer to work with, and definitely follow Farage's style and policies, rather than work with these five political searchers.
Beckett was apart from the mainstream centrist and right-wing herd in re-evaluating British 1970s history, therefore he is well placed to provide a long view on the lives and careers of Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott. Beckett makes a great case for this broadly New Left democratic socialist group's long term influence on culture and policy being well in advance of their electoral success on a national level. The younger four's persistent success in London is remarkable, but the Corbyn-led Labour ultimately could not find sufficient support outside the big cities to have a real shot at power. Admittedly, their underestimation by opponents and strong, focused campaign in 2017 showed them getting tantalisingly close, but unfortunately there were also clear signs in that election of what happened in 2019: the right being motivated to turn out to stop a redistributive socialist government happening.
Part of the big story Beckett tells is the ruthless manoeuvring of the Labour Right to undermine Benn and Corbyn and ultimately regain control of the party machinery (which was never fully dominated by the Left, really, in 1980-1 or even 2016-8). A Corbyn government in 2017, given McDonnell's shrewd, Livingstone-influenced positioning, is a what-if that remains tantalising. It could have done some good in arresting austerity and reversing some of the toxic legacy of Thatcherism that afflicts us in so many areas - unfair housing, enfeebled trade unions, water and most other privatisations.
Beckett implicitly also makes the key point that Benn's adherence to democracy is crucial. Labour's particular manoeuvring over Brexit in 2019 led Corbyn to seem an inauthentic compromiser. However, Beckett also makes clear that a more left-wing Labour deeply enthused people in the cities, and the party can ill afford to take these voters for granted - or demonise them - if it wants to retain power. In 2024, Labour won a landslide due to Tory collapse, obtaining notably fewer actual votes cast than in 2017 or 2019's defeats.
On a human level, Beckett notes the five politicians' failings, but also their great strengths. The idea that a party moulded in Wes Streeting's or Liz Kendall's image would actively attract large numbers of voters is absurd. Like William Davies has argued, the centre will need support from the left in order to have any chance of defending an open liberal society. Of course, some of them probably would prefer to work with, and definitely follow Farage's style and policies, rather than work with these five political searchers.
December 26, 2024
This review of 'The Searchers: Five Rebels, Their Dream of a Different Britain, and Their Many Enemies' by Andy Beckett appeared in The Guardian on May 8, 2024 and is worth reading if you are interested in the book.
The review:
""Persistence,” writes Andy Beckett, “is one of the left’s qualities that its enemies like least.” These hair-shirted zealots spend countless hours meeting, rallying, consciousness-raising, drumming up meagre support for seemingly lost causes. While he was the Greater London Council leader, Ken Livingstone lived alone in a student bedsit, the centrepiece of his room a quarter-sized snooker table on which he would practise shots after a 14-hour working day. Such obsessiveness seems baffling to the unbeliever. Why, they wonder, doesn’t the left just give up?
"This book offers an answer. “Leftwing politics,” Beckett claims, “is rarely the dead end its enemies would love it to be.” He begins in 1968, with Tony Benn’s conversion from an on-message cabinet minister into a standard-bearer for radicalism. Benn’s reawakening coincided roughly with the coming to political age of four much younger figures – Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott – who went on to forge a new left with him. Beckett has talked to all five, and is broadly a sympathiser, but his account of their project, while vividly detailed and often gripping, is as likely to reveal the left’s vanities and shortcomings.
"A fair-minded assessment is vital because, as Beckett says, much of what we know about these politicians is filtered through the hostile vested interests, from hedge fund owners to landlords, of the vastly unequal country that Britain has become. From Benn’s billing as “the most dangerous man in Britain” in the 70s to the racism and misogyny meted out to Abbott, leftwing politicians are always judged by different standards. Abuse and death threats are the ambient noise of their lives. The new left these five built together drew on diverse influences: the radical sects that emerged from the English civil war, Salvador Allende’s Chilean socialist experiment, even the philosophy of Pope John XXIII. It valued democratic participation as much as equality, and it thrived in unwelcoming habitats: Thatcherite and New Labourite London and Britain in the years after the Brexit vote. Its success lay, Beckett argues, in “its attentiveness to social, economic and cultural trends, to how Britons were actually living”.
"The Corbyn that emerges here – affable, a good listener, a diligent Islington MP – is hard to square with the stubborn, querulous persona he presented in interviews as Labour leader. Beckett addresses the case against his tenure – the chaotic party organisation, the lukewarm campaigning for remain, the failure to tackle antisemitism – thoroughly and fairly. In the end, the most damning impression this book leaves is that Corbyn didn’t especially want to be leader, and was unprepared to make even minor tonal adjustments to address the unconverted. Before the 2015 leadership election, Corbyn’s son Seb told McDonnell that his dad was “worried that he might win”.
"The five politicians seem split between those prepared to build alliances and make compromises to gain power (Livingstone, McDonnell) and those playing a much longer game who see electoral victory almost as a side issue (Benn, Corbyn, Abbott). “Elections are a platform,” Benn said on Desert Island Discs in 1989. “People see elections much too much in terms of the outcome.” He told his supporters that his narrow loss to Denis Healey in Labour’s deputy leadership contest in 1981 was “an enormous victory”. Corbyn, similarly, spent months after the catastrophic 2019 general election defeat insisting that his arguments had been vindicated.
"With caveats, Beckett subscribes to this Bennite view that politics is as much about changing ways of seeing and thinking as vote-counting. The left, he argues, has won many invisible, incremental battles, from investment in public transport in London to shifts in cultural attitudes. Today, pamphlets on diversity issued by Livingstone’s GLC “read like standard memos from human resources”. True enough, although how much this has to do with the GLC, or even the left, is debatable.
"Benn’s final appearances in this book find him on a speaking tour. Wearing a cardigan and sipping from a flask of tea on stage, he offers his already converted audience the reassuring sense that they are on the side of the angels. Surveying Benn’s transformation into alternative national treasure, hero-worshipped into harmlessness, one is forced to conclude that the outcome of elections is, in fact, quite important."
The review:
""Persistence,” writes Andy Beckett, “is one of the left’s qualities that its enemies like least.” These hair-shirted zealots spend countless hours meeting, rallying, consciousness-raising, drumming up meagre support for seemingly lost causes. While he was the Greater London Council leader, Ken Livingstone lived alone in a student bedsit, the centrepiece of his room a quarter-sized snooker table on which he would practise shots after a 14-hour working day. Such obsessiveness seems baffling to the unbeliever. Why, they wonder, doesn’t the left just give up?
"This book offers an answer. “Leftwing politics,” Beckett claims, “is rarely the dead end its enemies would love it to be.” He begins in 1968, with Tony Benn’s conversion from an on-message cabinet minister into a standard-bearer for radicalism. Benn’s reawakening coincided roughly with the coming to political age of four much younger figures – Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott – who went on to forge a new left with him. Beckett has talked to all five, and is broadly a sympathiser, but his account of their project, while vividly detailed and often gripping, is as likely to reveal the left’s vanities and shortcomings.
"A fair-minded assessment is vital because, as Beckett says, much of what we know about these politicians is filtered through the hostile vested interests, from hedge fund owners to landlords, of the vastly unequal country that Britain has become. From Benn’s billing as “the most dangerous man in Britain” in the 70s to the racism and misogyny meted out to Abbott, leftwing politicians are always judged by different standards. Abuse and death threats are the ambient noise of their lives. The new left these five built together drew on diverse influences: the radical sects that emerged from the English civil war, Salvador Allende’s Chilean socialist experiment, even the philosophy of Pope John XXIII. It valued democratic participation as much as equality, and it thrived in unwelcoming habitats: Thatcherite and New Labourite London and Britain in the years after the Brexit vote. Its success lay, Beckett argues, in “its attentiveness to social, economic and cultural trends, to how Britons were actually living”.
"The Corbyn that emerges here – affable, a good listener, a diligent Islington MP – is hard to square with the stubborn, querulous persona he presented in interviews as Labour leader. Beckett addresses the case against his tenure – the chaotic party organisation, the lukewarm campaigning for remain, the failure to tackle antisemitism – thoroughly and fairly. In the end, the most damning impression this book leaves is that Corbyn didn’t especially want to be leader, and was unprepared to make even minor tonal adjustments to address the unconverted. Before the 2015 leadership election, Corbyn’s son Seb told McDonnell that his dad was “worried that he might win”.
"The five politicians seem split between those prepared to build alliances and make compromises to gain power (Livingstone, McDonnell) and those playing a much longer game who see electoral victory almost as a side issue (Benn, Corbyn, Abbott). “Elections are a platform,” Benn said on Desert Island Discs in 1989. “People see elections much too much in terms of the outcome.” He told his supporters that his narrow loss to Denis Healey in Labour’s deputy leadership contest in 1981 was “an enormous victory”. Corbyn, similarly, spent months after the catastrophic 2019 general election defeat insisting that his arguments had been vindicated.
"With caveats, Beckett subscribes to this Bennite view that politics is as much about changing ways of seeing and thinking as vote-counting. The left, he argues, has won many invisible, incremental battles, from investment in public transport in London to shifts in cultural attitudes. Today, pamphlets on diversity issued by Livingstone’s GLC “read like standard memos from human resources”. True enough, although how much this has to do with the GLC, or even the left, is debatable.
"Benn’s final appearances in this book find him on a speaking tour. Wearing a cardigan and sipping from a flask of tea on stage, he offers his already converted audience the reassuring sense that they are on the side of the angels. Surveying Benn’s transformation into alternative national treasure, hero-worshipped into harmlessness, one is forced to conclude that the outcome of elections is, in fact, quite important."
August 2, 2024
ItThere is a telling quote which sums up the failure of these five politicians.
‘Having moved mainly amongst fellow lefties for so long, Corbyn did not know how to communicate effectively with people who were not.’
They could not communicate because they believed in their messianic righteousness on all matters and could broach no contradiction. So, any alternative views were never entertained.
There is almost no introspection in this otherwise interesting hagiography of the Dave Spart* wing of the Labour Party. Everyone else in Labour was a centrist or right wing if they were not in the chosen few. In the most amusing deviation from fact, Andy even blames conniving right-wingers for the 1983 Labour suicide manifesto, conveniently ignoring that it was written on Michael Foot’s instructions to put in all the conference resolutions, however bonkers. Somehow those conniving right-wingers always outsmarted these five.
As someone in the party on an off for over 40 years, most of my views would coincide with Corbyn except I do see the value of the EU, NATO, supporting Ukraine and being equally appalled by Hamas and the Israeli government. However, this makes me outside the Pale.
But it is about Ireland, mentioned throughout the book, that the deafness is most obvious. A United Ireland is postulated as a given. There is not one mention of the unionist population. Had the Dave Spart wing succeeded with Troops Out, Northern Ireland and then all Ireland would have been plunged into civil war. A potential one million refugees could have ended up coming to the mainland. Yet that thought never was entertained in the meetings the five held. They never asked unionists as they could not cope with the answer. (They thought unionists would just surrender!)
He mentions that the polls started turning in the 2019 election and seems unaware why that stopped. Andy forgets to mention the disastrous interview Corbyn had with Andrew Neil where he repeatedly refused to accept antisemitism was an issue. In thirty minutes Corbyn sank himself and condemned the party to its worse defeat since 1935. Corbyn did not know how to communicate with people who did not believe.
*Dave Spart was a fictional creation of Private Eye always leading the Revolution from his bedsit who lacked all self-awareness and had zero humour.
‘Having moved mainly amongst fellow lefties for so long, Corbyn did not know how to communicate effectively with people who were not.’
They could not communicate because they believed in their messianic righteousness on all matters and could broach no contradiction. So, any alternative views were never entertained.
There is almost no introspection in this otherwise interesting hagiography of the Dave Spart* wing of the Labour Party. Everyone else in Labour was a centrist or right wing if they were not in the chosen few. In the most amusing deviation from fact, Andy even blames conniving right-wingers for the 1983 Labour suicide manifesto, conveniently ignoring that it was written on Michael Foot’s instructions to put in all the conference resolutions, however bonkers. Somehow those conniving right-wingers always outsmarted these five.
As someone in the party on an off for over 40 years, most of my views would coincide with Corbyn except I do see the value of the EU, NATO, supporting Ukraine and being equally appalled by Hamas and the Israeli government. However, this makes me outside the Pale.
But it is about Ireland, mentioned throughout the book, that the deafness is most obvious. A United Ireland is postulated as a given. There is not one mention of the unionist population. Had the Dave Spart wing succeeded with Troops Out, Northern Ireland and then all Ireland would have been plunged into civil war. A potential one million refugees could have ended up coming to the mainland. Yet that thought never was entertained in the meetings the five held. They never asked unionists as they could not cope with the answer. (They thought unionists would just surrender!)
He mentions that the polls started turning in the 2019 election and seems unaware why that stopped. Andy forgets to mention the disastrous interview Corbyn had with Andrew Neil where he repeatedly refused to accept antisemitism was an issue. In thirty minutes Corbyn sank himself and condemned the party to its worse defeat since 1935. Corbyn did not know how to communicate with people who did not believe.
*Dave Spart was a fictional creation of Private Eye always leading the Revolution from his bedsit who lacked all self-awareness and had zero humour.
August 25, 2024
An elegiac and sympathetic group biography of five figures of the Labour left since 1968.
The author sets just the right tone. He understands what motivated and still motivates these people and their supporters. He knows the state of our country is a tragedy. You can tell he wanted these people to have a chance to rescue us from the tragedy. He knows Corbyn is a good man, but an unlikely leader, who has been knifed in the back by the state prosecutor who serves only NATO and Washington (the same thing). Well done Andy for helping to keep the flame alive!
The author sets just the right tone. He understands what motivated and still motivates these people and their supporters. He knows the state of our country is a tragedy. You can tell he wanted these people to have a chance to rescue us from the tragedy. He knows Corbyn is a good man, but an unlikely leader, who has been knifed in the back by the state prosecutor who serves only NATO and Washington (the same thing). Well done Andy for helping to keep the flame alive!
October 12, 2024
I really liked this. It gave a fairly balanced view of the Labour Party and the five searchers. It gave a lot of background and context to each situation and the audiobook narration was fantastic. It was really informative and I think it’s interesting to read this considering the Labour Party are now in charge.
May 5, 2025
Unexpectedly light-hearted in places, suitably devastating in others, The Searchers is the political soap opera spanning five decades you never knew you needed. It is also meticulously well-researched (with a bibliography and index spanning at least 50 pages) and pulls no punches. Beckett's admiration and affection for leftwing ideas shines through, but this is no nostalgic vision of a country that never was. If anything, his mirth at the contrast between the 'national treasure' status Tony Benn obtained in his later years, and the media presentation of his younger self as a dangerous radical is palpable. There is no hesitation where the benefit of hindsight is concerned, nor does Beckett grant any of his subjects a free pass while acknowledging the challenges each has overcome in their long careers.
While any author who succeeds in drawing something hopeful, even engrossing from the long dark stretches of the British left's wilderness period (AKA the 80s and 90s) is onto a winner, it's in the final chapters that Beckett's talent really shines through. Despite having lived it, I read his bittersweet recollections of the youthful optimism that swept Jeremy Corbyn's early years as Labour leader, subsequent media onslaught and eventual defeat, with bated breath. Non-fiction may have a reputation for being less reliable for stirring up strong emotions. But in this instance, seeing a crucial part of my 20s staring back at me from the page, and the hope for a better future that rode on it, this supposedly mature 30-something with a steady job and a mortgage, found herself lying awake for hours afterwards plotting new ways to overthrow the establishment.
While any author who succeeds in drawing something hopeful, even engrossing from the long dark stretches of the British left's wilderness period (AKA the 80s and 90s) is onto a winner, it's in the final chapters that Beckett's talent really shines through. Despite having lived it, I read his bittersweet recollections of the youthful optimism that swept Jeremy Corbyn's early years as Labour leader, subsequent media onslaught and eventual defeat, with bated breath. Non-fiction may have a reputation for being less reliable for stirring up strong emotions. But in this instance, seeing a crucial part of my 20s staring back at me from the page, and the hope for a better future that rode on it, this supposedly mature 30-something with a steady job and a mortgage, found herself lying awake for hours afterwards plotting new ways to overthrow the establishment.
December 5, 2024
Andy Beckett has written an excellent account of the often intertwined political careers of Tony Benn, Diane Abbott, Ken Livingstone, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn. It’s a sympathetic though not uncritical account too and it’s all the better for that. The influence that the five have had and still have on British politics is perhaps more profound than many people would think but Beckett makes his case well and explains this influence in clear terms. The book is interesting and enjoyable and should be read by anyone interested in progressive politics. Highly recommended.
January 16, 2025
An excellent and very readable history of the 5 most prominent figures on the British Left since the 1960s. Very timely given the current travails of the centrist Labour government. The author ends on an optimistic note - but I am unconvinced - Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott are still in parliament but have no real influence on current policy - and their socialist prescriptions for the country have no traction with a grumpy, ever more right-wing English population. In my lifetime, I suspect New Labour before the Iraq disaster is and was as good as it can get for the Left in the UK.
January 17, 2025
A fascinating and detailed account of these five politicians focusing on their individual stories and how their careers overlapped. It left me wondering whether there is still a place for left wing politics in this increasingly sterile and bland capitalist society - I do hope so.
June 26, 2025
Probably the one book anyone should bother with about the Corbyn moment at this point - no recent topic on the left was as endlessly pored over and dissected (particularly online) to absolutely no end or insight in the years from 2019 to the outbreak of the Zionist genocide in Gaza. This book's great strength is that rather than following the conventional narrative of seeing the Corbyn moment as a messianic rupture wherein radical politics came back from the dead, having been irrelevant since the miners' strike, or the left sabotaging its one chance at power, it instead situates it in a post-1968 context wherein traditional emancipatory narratives largely rooted in ideas of class struggle broke down on the left and led to a decades long process wherein questions of race, gender and sexuality alongside issues of international solidarity became much more prominent.
As British society changed, so too did ideas of what the actual relevance of the Labour party and left-wing politics was. Beckett incisively argues that, using these five Labour rebels as examples of wider trends, many aspects of British society were changed for the better through the visibility of leftist positions and efforts to use existing institutions as vehicles for change. Whilst none of these were unqualified successes, real victories were won out on questions of race, gender, sexuality and international solidarity which have to some extent mainstreamed ideas which were once totally marginal.
When read in this context, the Corbyn moment comes to be seen as far less the end of the British left than a stage in its long-term revitalisation. For instance, it's hard to imagine the election of four independent MPs running on an explicitly Gaza-centred platform in the 2024 election had Corbynism not led to a renewed confidence amongst leftist organisers and willingness to work against the Labour Party - to say nothing of the mass protest movements that have emerged since October 7th.
It's especially interesting to read this as a leftist companion of sorts to Adam Curtis' recent documentary series Shifty, which traces the impact of monetarism and hyper-individualism through Britain over most of the period covered here. Whilst Beckett can often seem over-optimistic in his read of more recent events, he does find a space for the left in the broader history of the last 50 years in Britain and convincingly argue for its overlooked importance at a time when it appeared to be largely invisible or non-existent.
As British society changed, so too did ideas of what the actual relevance of the Labour party and left-wing politics was. Beckett incisively argues that, using these five Labour rebels as examples of wider trends, many aspects of British society were changed for the better through the visibility of leftist positions and efforts to use existing institutions as vehicles for change. Whilst none of these were unqualified successes, real victories were won out on questions of race, gender, sexuality and international solidarity which have to some extent mainstreamed ideas which were once totally marginal.
When read in this context, the Corbyn moment comes to be seen as far less the end of the British left than a stage in its long-term revitalisation. For instance, it's hard to imagine the election of four independent MPs running on an explicitly Gaza-centred platform in the 2024 election had Corbynism not led to a renewed confidence amongst leftist organisers and willingness to work against the Labour Party - to say nothing of the mass protest movements that have emerged since October 7th.
It's especially interesting to read this as a leftist companion of sorts to Adam Curtis' recent documentary series Shifty, which traces the impact of monetarism and hyper-individualism through Britain over most of the period covered here. Whilst Beckett can often seem over-optimistic in his read of more recent events, he does find a space for the left in the broader history of the last 50 years in Britain and convincingly argue for its overlooked importance at a time when it appeared to be largely invisible or non-existent.
July 11, 2024
Pretty fascinating and compelling reading, with a worthy underlying theme that, in spite of a lack of parliamentary "success", the leading figures of the British left have had a lasting impact on society and have "changed the narrative" around a number of key international and social issues.
Needless to say, I didn't agree with everything! The underlying ideological framework is decidedly petty-bourgeois reformist. Still, a valuable read.
Needless to say, I didn't agree with everything! The underlying ideological framework is decidedly petty-bourgeois reformist. Still, a valuable read.
May 12, 2024
The virtues of patience.
July 30, 2025
very interesting, but somehow I felt something was missing here. Not sure what it was though. Perhaps the author in his struggle to be objective became a little detached. Well worth reading though
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