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Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn
'THE POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR' Tim Shipman
A blistering narrative exposé of infighting, skulduggery and chaos in Corbyn's Labour party, now revised and updated.
* A Times , Guardian , Daily Telegraph , Sunday Times and i Newspaper Book of the Year *
Left Out tells, for the first time, the astonishing full story of Labour's recent transformation and historic defeat.
Drawing on unrivalled access, this blistering exposé moves from the peak of Jeremy Corbyn's popularity and the shock hung parliament of 2017 to Labour's humbling in 2019 and the election of Keir Starmer. It reveals a party at war with itself, and puts the reader in the room as tensions boil over, sworn enemies forge unlikely alliances and lifelong friendships are tested to breaking point.
This is the ultimate account of the greatest experiment seen in British politics for a generation.
'Gripping... Every bit as good as people say' Guardian
'Reads like a thriller...told with panache and pace' Financial Times
'The definitive post-mortem of the Corbyn project' Sunday Times
A blistering narrative exposé of infighting, skulduggery and chaos in Corbyn's Labour party, now revised and updated.
* A Times , Guardian , Daily Telegraph , Sunday Times and i Newspaper Book of the Year *
Left Out tells, for the first time, the astonishing full story of Labour's recent transformation and historic defeat.
Drawing on unrivalled access, this blistering exposé moves from the peak of Jeremy Corbyn's popularity and the shock hung parliament of 2017 to Labour's humbling in 2019 and the election of Keir Starmer. It reveals a party at war with itself, and puts the reader in the room as tensions boil over, sworn enemies forge unlikely alliances and lifelong friendships are tested to breaking point.
This is the ultimate account of the greatest experiment seen in British politics for a generation.
'Gripping... Every bit as good as people say' Guardian
'Reads like a thriller...told with panache and pace' Financial Times
'The definitive post-mortem of the Corbyn project' Sunday Times
400 pages, Paperback
First published September 3, 2020
193 people are currently reading
1291 people want to read
About the author
Gabriel Pogrund
2 books3 followersGabriel Pogrund (b. c.1993) is a journalist who is currently Whitehall editor at The Sunday Times.
He graduated with a BA in geography from University College London in 2016.
He won 2017 Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards and in 2018 was a Stern Fellow at The Washington Post. In 2020, Pogrund and Patrick Maguire published Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn.
In 2021, Pogrund and John Collingridge won a British Journalism Award for anti-corruption journalism for their reporting on the Greensill scandal. In 2022, he made the shortlist for the Paul Foot Award for reporting on how Prince Charles's household had allegedly promised honours in exchange for donations to the Prince's charities.
Pogrund also broke the story of BBC chairman Richard Sharp failing to declare perceived conflicts of interest, which ultimately resulted in Sharp's resignation in April 2023.
He graduated with a BA in geography from University College London in 2016.
He won 2017 Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards and in 2018 was a Stern Fellow at The Washington Post. In 2020, Pogrund and Patrick Maguire published Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn.
In 2021, Pogrund and John Collingridge won a British Journalism Award for anti-corruption journalism for their reporting on the Greensill scandal. In 2022, he made the shortlist for the Paul Foot Award for reporting on how Prince Charles's household had allegedly promised honours in exchange for donations to the Prince's charities.
Pogrund also broke the story of BBC chairman Richard Sharp failing to declare perceived conflicts of interest, which ultimately resulted in Sharp's resignation in April 2023.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews
September 5, 2020
3.5
By 3pm on Saturday, Jake had read 'Left Out' and was keen to push on with a review on Goodreads, but Tom Dulle and Carol Hoo-Dat had already been messaged by the WhatsApp group. Kelly Summe-Tanky sent Jake a short message on her train trip between some meeting somewhere and some other meeting somewhere else: 'CALL ME. HE MUST NOT REVIEW THE BOK(sic)'. 'Jake's phone was charging, so he didn't get it', said a colleague. 'That's fucking bullshit' said another colleague.
Dulle, who had been Tim Snore's Assistant Head of Operations in 2015, ignored the call from Summe-Tanky and confided in his friend Murray Yawn, formerly head of Hoo-Dat's office (before being ousted by Angus McBimbap after a drunk exchange at a Travelodge in Dundee in 2013) that Jake would be posting within minutes.
When Jake's review eventually landed, Snore instantly forwarded it to Dulle, who refused to allow it to be seen by Hoo-Dat - saying that she'd only forward it to some other bloke. They waited and ate some Twixes.
Dulle later said: 'Jake thought the book was decent, but that its main insights had already been covered in the serialisation. And while it made the important point that Corbyn was useless, casually racist and surrounded by characteristically fractious Tankies and union lifers (whose sum career expertise amounted to ordering biscuits for StWC meetings), it was all a bit dull, as up-close party politics so often are'.
When Hoo-Dat finally read this, she 'hit the roof' and had to be constrained by Lottie Gherkin from South Side.
She said: 'It's a lie. Dulle is a lying bully. Jake didn't say that in his review. What he said was that the abiding feeling he had about the account echoed something he'd felt when reading 'All Out War', by Tim Shipman.
Namely, that day-to-day party politics - even for someone fairly interested in what's happening in politics - is stunningly dull. It makes 'Streets of Shame' in Private Eye sound interesting. It's populated with an endless cast of fractious weirdos, with roles and job titles that I genuinely have no idea what they do or who they are. Endless assistants and strategists and secretaries and chiefs of staff. I really struggle to find that interesting.
That line about politics being like 'showbiz for ugly people' is, in truth, really badly wrong. Showbiz is entertaining! This scene isn't. It's dull, the personalities are dull, disingenuous and forever in flux. It's like watching a bunch of accountants on a paint-balling day. So while this book is about that godawful racist weasel Corbyn and the godawful people around him, the biggest question for me is: how could anyone ever want to be part of that whole scene? What kind of freak would ever go into politics?'.
By 3pm on Saturday, Jake had read 'Left Out' and was keen to push on with a review on Goodreads, but Tom Dulle and Carol Hoo-Dat had already been messaged by the WhatsApp group. Kelly Summe-Tanky sent Jake a short message on her train trip between some meeting somewhere and some other meeting somewhere else: 'CALL ME. HE MUST NOT REVIEW THE BOK(sic)'. 'Jake's phone was charging, so he didn't get it', said a colleague. 'That's fucking bullshit' said another colleague.
Dulle, who had been Tim Snore's Assistant Head of Operations in 2015, ignored the call from Summe-Tanky and confided in his friend Murray Yawn, formerly head of Hoo-Dat's office (before being ousted by Angus McBimbap after a drunk exchange at a Travelodge in Dundee in 2013) that Jake would be posting within minutes.
When Jake's review eventually landed, Snore instantly forwarded it to Dulle, who refused to allow it to be seen by Hoo-Dat - saying that she'd only forward it to some other bloke. They waited and ate some Twixes.
Dulle later said: 'Jake thought the book was decent, but that its main insights had already been covered in the serialisation. And while it made the important point that Corbyn was useless, casually racist and surrounded by characteristically fractious Tankies and union lifers (whose sum career expertise amounted to ordering biscuits for StWC meetings), it was all a bit dull, as up-close party politics so often are'.
When Hoo-Dat finally read this, she 'hit the roof' and had to be constrained by Lottie Gherkin from South Side.
She said: 'It's a lie. Dulle is a lying bully. Jake didn't say that in his review. What he said was that the abiding feeling he had about the account echoed something he'd felt when reading 'All Out War', by Tim Shipman.
Namely, that day-to-day party politics - even for someone fairly interested in what's happening in politics - is stunningly dull. It makes 'Streets of Shame' in Private Eye sound interesting. It's populated with an endless cast of fractious weirdos, with roles and job titles that I genuinely have no idea what they do or who they are. Endless assistants and strategists and secretaries and chiefs of staff. I really struggle to find that interesting.
That line about politics being like 'showbiz for ugly people' is, in truth, really badly wrong. Showbiz is entertaining! This scene isn't. It's dull, the personalities are dull, disingenuous and forever in flux. It's like watching a bunch of accountants on a paint-balling day. So while this book is about that godawful racist weasel Corbyn and the godawful people around him, the biggest question for me is: how could anyone ever want to be part of that whole scene? What kind of freak would ever go into politics?'.
February 17, 2025
A very well-sourced, expansive yet detailed and readable account.
The events surrounding Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, and others of the Labour left and their Project [to deliver a left-wing government] is told first hand by those who worked with Corbyn as MPs, the Parliamentary Labour Party, other party employees, union figures and the various chiefs-of-staff, advisors and Leader of the Opposition [LOTO] office.
The period covers from the period just before 2017 and then how Labour under Corbyn reduced Teresa May's Conservative government's majority, and then forwards through various events, including Brexit, the antisemitism scandal, the serious and never ending factionalism with Labour and the Project, and ending with Labour's worst electoral showing since the 1930s, and onto the election of Sir Keir Starmer as party leader.
Stuffed full of comment, back of house conversations, revelations, and decisions [or not in Corbyn's case] that leave this reader once again seeing how vile, untrustworthy, unprofessional, and simply inept political parties and their MPs, staffs and advisors are.
Pogrund and Maguire have added greatly to the recent political literature of the last 10 years.
For those who might be interested and to read further, I can recommend:
*Despised by Paul Embery
*The Starmer Project by Oliver Eagleton
*Jeremy Corbyn: Dangerous Hero by Tom Bowyer
*The Right to Rule: 13 years; Five prime ministers and the implosion of the Tories by Ben Riley Smith [published in paperback as Blue Murder: The Rise and Fall of the Conservative Government 2010-2014
*Unleashed by Boris Johnson
*The Prime Ministers We Never Had by Steve Richards
The events surrounding Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, and others of the Labour left and their Project [to deliver a left-wing government] is told first hand by those who worked with Corbyn as MPs, the Parliamentary Labour Party, other party employees, union figures and the various chiefs-of-staff, advisors and Leader of the Opposition [LOTO] office.
The period covers from the period just before 2017 and then how Labour under Corbyn reduced Teresa May's Conservative government's majority, and then forwards through various events, including Brexit, the antisemitism scandal, the serious and never ending factionalism with Labour and the Project, and ending with Labour's worst electoral showing since the 1930s, and onto the election of Sir Keir Starmer as party leader.
Stuffed full of comment, back of house conversations, revelations, and decisions [or not in Corbyn's case] that leave this reader once again seeing how vile, untrustworthy, unprofessional, and simply inept political parties and their MPs, staffs and advisors are.
Pogrund and Maguire have added greatly to the recent political literature of the last 10 years.
For those who might be interested and to read further, I can recommend:
*Despised by Paul Embery
*The Starmer Project by Oliver Eagleton
*Jeremy Corbyn: Dangerous Hero by Tom Bowyer
*The Right to Rule: 13 years; Five prime ministers and the implosion of the Tories by Ben Riley Smith [published in paperback as Blue Murder: The Rise and Fall of the Conservative Government 2010-2014
*Unleashed by Boris Johnson
*The Prime Ministers We Never Had by Steve Richards
September 17, 2020
This is a thoughtful, and balanced, account of the crazy political situation that unfolded in the UK – and specifically the Labour Party – from the 2017 election, when Theresa May gambled, and failed, to get the majority she needed to push her Brexit deal through the commons, to the 2019 election, when Boris gambled, and won.
In 2017, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour had a surprising success against May. Rather than celebrating, divided Labour officials in Southside were horrified, while ‘The Project’ felt as though they could touch power. Buoyed by the fact they had performed more positively than expected, The Project wrote their wish-list of internal reforms. However, Corbyn was clear that when/if he became Prime Minister, he would not live in No. 10. This was going to be a different kind of politics. ‘Not socialism in one country, but socialism in one corridor,’ as a wag dubbed the Project.
It is clear, though, that not everyone was amused, as was shown by the initial horror that Labour had done better than expected in the 2017 election. The Labour Party was divided and at war with itself. This book takes us through attempted coups, distrust, questionable rhetoric, splits, plots and intrigues. There are accusations of anti-Semitism, accusations of bullying and, at the heart of the matter, Labour’s inability to come up with a workable Brexit stance. Corbyn comes across as a fairly nice guy, but seemed unable to make decisions or take control. Rather than engage, those that worked with him said he had a tendency to withdraw.
Of course, with Parliament at a stale mate, what unfolded was, another, election. By this time, Corbyn no longer had the element of novelty, the Lib Dems had a new leader and, of course, so did the Conservatives. I live in one of the few Conservative London boroughs and the Labour Party canvassed us heavily. Week after week I saw groups of Labour supporters, cheerfully heading out; inspired by Twitter, and student politics; imagining they would win. What those in the Labour hierarchy, and the majority of the population, could see, was that Corbyn was not electable. Had they had a different approach to Brexit, things might had been different, but the idea of another referendum was anathema to a population weary of infighting and stalemate.
Indeed, those in the Labour hierarchy had known that the 2019 election would be a disaster for months. While some refused to accept that voters – especially those in the North – would vote Tory, others knew that it would be difficult to avert disaster. There is also much about the planning, and plotting, which went on even before a vote had been cast for a new leader of the Labour Party. Overall, this is a good read if you are interested in politics and the demise of the ill-fated Project.
In 2017, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour had a surprising success against May. Rather than celebrating, divided Labour officials in Southside were horrified, while ‘The Project’ felt as though they could touch power. Buoyed by the fact they had performed more positively than expected, The Project wrote their wish-list of internal reforms. However, Corbyn was clear that when/if he became Prime Minister, he would not live in No. 10. This was going to be a different kind of politics. ‘Not socialism in one country, but socialism in one corridor,’ as a wag dubbed the Project.
It is clear, though, that not everyone was amused, as was shown by the initial horror that Labour had done better than expected in the 2017 election. The Labour Party was divided and at war with itself. This book takes us through attempted coups, distrust, questionable rhetoric, splits, plots and intrigues. There are accusations of anti-Semitism, accusations of bullying and, at the heart of the matter, Labour’s inability to come up with a workable Brexit stance. Corbyn comes across as a fairly nice guy, but seemed unable to make decisions or take control. Rather than engage, those that worked with him said he had a tendency to withdraw.
Of course, with Parliament at a stale mate, what unfolded was, another, election. By this time, Corbyn no longer had the element of novelty, the Lib Dems had a new leader and, of course, so did the Conservatives. I live in one of the few Conservative London boroughs and the Labour Party canvassed us heavily. Week after week I saw groups of Labour supporters, cheerfully heading out; inspired by Twitter, and student politics; imagining they would win. What those in the Labour hierarchy, and the majority of the population, could see, was that Corbyn was not electable. Had they had a different approach to Brexit, things might had been different, but the idea of another referendum was anathema to a population weary of infighting and stalemate.
Indeed, those in the Labour hierarchy had known that the 2019 election would be a disaster for months. While some refused to accept that voters – especially those in the North – would vote Tory, others knew that it would be difficult to avert disaster. There is also much about the planning, and plotting, which went on even before a vote had been cast for a new leader of the Labour Party. Overall, this is a good read if you are interested in politics and the demise of the ill-fated Project.
September 28, 2021
This is a thoughtful, and balanced, account of the crazy political situation that unfolded in the UK – and specifically the Labour Party – from the 2017 election, when Theresa May gambled, and failed, to get the majority she needed to push her Brexit deal through the commons, to the 2019 election, when Boris gambled, and won.
In 2017, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour had a surprising success against May. Rather than celebrating, divided Labour officials in Southside were horrified, while ‘The Project’ felt as though they could touch power. Buoyed by the fact they had performed more positively than expected, The Project wrote their wish-list of internal reforms. However, Corbyn was clear that when/if he became Prime Minister, he would not live in No. 10. This was going to be a different kind of politics. ‘Not socialism in one country, but socialism in one corridor,’ as a wag dubbed the Project.
It is clear, though, that not everyone was amused, as was shown by the initial horror that Labour had done better than expected in the 2017 election. The Labour Party was divided and at war with itself. This book takes us through attempted coups, distrust, questionable rhetoric, splits, plots and intrigues. There are accusations of anti-Semitism, accusations of bullying and, at the heart of the matter, Labour’s inability to come up with a workable Brexit stance. Corbyn comes across as a fairly nice guy, but seemed unable to make decisions or take control. Rather than engage, those that worked with him said he had a tendency to withdraw.
Of course, with Parliament at a stale mate, what unfolded was, another, election. By this time, Corbyn no longer had the element of novelty, the Lib Dems had a new leader and, of course, so did the Conservatives. I live in one of the few Conservative London boroughs and the Labour Party canvassed us heavily. Week after week I saw groups of Labour supporters, cheerfully heading out; inspired by Twitter, and student politics; imagining they would win. What those in the Labour hierarchy, and the majority of the population, could see, was that Corbyn was not electable. Had they had a different approach to Brexit, things might had been different, but the idea of another referendum was anathema to a population weary of infighting and stalemate.
Indeed, those in the Labour hierarchy had known that the 2019 election would be a disaster for months. While some refused to accept that voters – especially those in the North – would vote Tory, others knew that it would be difficult to avert disaster. There is also much about the planning, and plotting, which went on even before a vote had been cast for a new leader of the Labour Party. Overall, this is a good read if you are interested in politics and the demise of the ill-fated Project.
In 2017, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour had a surprising success against May. Rather than celebrating, divided Labour officials in Southside were horrified, while ‘The Project’ felt as though they could touch power. Buoyed by the fact they had performed more positively than expected, The Project wrote their wish-list of internal reforms. However, Corbyn was clear that when/if he became Prime Minister, he would not live in No. 10. This was going to be a different kind of politics. ‘Not socialism in one country, but socialism in one corridor,’ as a wag dubbed the Project.
It is clear, though, that not everyone was amused, as was shown by the initial horror that Labour had done better than expected in the 2017 election. The Labour Party was divided and at war with itself. This book takes us through attempted coups, distrust, questionable rhetoric, splits, plots and intrigues. There are accusations of anti-Semitism, accusations of bullying and, at the heart of the matter, Labour’s inability to come up with a workable Brexit stance. Corbyn comes across as a fairly nice guy, but seemed unable to make decisions or take control. Rather than engage, those that worked with him said he had a tendency to withdraw.
Of course, with Parliament at a stale mate, what unfolded was, another, election. By this time, Corbyn no longer had the element of novelty, the Lib Dems had a new leader and, of course, so did the Conservatives. I live in one of the few Conservative London boroughs and the Labour Party canvassed us heavily. Week after week I saw groups of Labour supporters, cheerfully heading out; inspired by Twitter, and student politics; imagining they would win. What those in the Labour hierarchy, and the majority of the population, could see, was that Corbyn was not electable. Had they had a different approach to Brexit, things might had been different, but the idea of another referendum was anathema to a population weary of infighting and stalemate.
Indeed, those in the Labour hierarchy had known that the 2019 election would be a disaster for months. While some refused to accept that voters – especially those in the North – would vote Tory, others knew that it would be difficult to avert disaster. There is also much about the planning, and plotting, which went on even before a vote had been cast for a new leader of the Labour Party. Overall, this is a good read if you are interested in politics and the demise of the ill-fated Project.
February 17, 2021
[Tony Blair} proceeded to tell [BBC’s Nick] Robinson [on a podcast interview in September 2018] .. “I don’t think the British people will tolerate a situation where, for example, the choice at the next election is Boris Johnson versus Jeremy Corbyn”
In 2017 and 2018 I read Tim Shipman’s “All Out War” which I said was “likely to stand as the definitive account of the political events before, during and after the Brexit vote”, and then his follow-up “Fall Out – A Year Of Political Mayhem”. My comments on both books were that they were “lengthy and exhaustively detailed, but rarely less than engrossing”, with the “only passages of lesser interest were typically those around the array of special advisors and campaign managers”.
The books themselves stand as a definitive record of the mess that the Conservative Party was over a 5 year or so period and why Boris Johnson was part of the intolerable choice that we were, confounding Tony Blair’s prediction, saddled with in December 2019. The consequences and terrible costs of the choice the country made has been unfortunately all too clear in 2020.
My biggest criticism of Shipman’s second book (which had the 2017 election as a centre piece) was that he “has stronger contacts among establishment figures – and this lets him down in this book due to the anti-establishment take-over of the Labour Party: the passages on Corbyn/Momentum contain far less insider detail than is usual across the two books”.
It is perhaps a strong sign that Shipman himself realises this weakness and the story he is missing that he encouraged these two journalist to write this book – a book which has the exact style and many of the strengths and weaknesses of Shipman’s books – but which centres entirely on Jeremy Corbyn and the Project around him – over the period from the 2017 to the 2019 General elections.
It is perhaps less engrossing than the Shipman books and I think there are three main reasons for that.
One is that much of the arguments and manufactured drama were purely internal and really had little impact on the real world – many of the events and people in Shipman’s book would be known at some level to the general public; many of those here were unknown to me, even as a New Statesman reader. Or to return to my criticism of Shipman's books - this is largely an account of advisors, party officials and campaign managers.
The second I think is that so much of the account seems already out of date – partly due to the sweeping election defeat which ends the book removing much of the drama from Brexit and partly due to the rather larger events of COVID (the book finishing in February 2020) – so that only 1 year on it is slightly bizarre to remember how important things like Baroness Hale of the brooch seemed at the time.
The third I suspect is two less experienced authors.
The book nevertheless stands as a good record of not just the mess but the alarming aims at the heart of the Project, why Jeremy Corbyn was a part of the intolerable choice and would likely have lead to even higher costs in 2020.
September 14, 2020
Initially I was concerned that this would be a bit of a hatchet-job, but it's actually really balanced: nobody comes off well, which I guess reflects that.
April 20, 2021
a 350 page narrative on the importance of effective corporate structures and the pitfalls of a political leader unwilling, or unable, to wield executive power, with all the glamour and cheer that implies.
September 9, 2020
Slightly trauma inducing read for a Labour Party member but you can’t help but enjoy especially with the farcical nature of some of events covered being brought to the fore.
The writers bring the best qualities of their day jobs as journalists and manage to avoid the traps that other books focusing on politics fall into by creating a pacy read that while not light on detail doesn’t dwell on the minutiae.
A great read about an unprecedented time in Labour Party politics with the right blend of insider knowledge and journalistic detachment that hopefully isn’t their last collaboration.
The writers bring the best qualities of their day jobs as journalists and manage to avoid the traps that other books focusing on politics fall into by creating a pacy read that while not light on detail doesn’t dwell on the minutiae.
A great read about an unprecedented time in Labour Party politics with the right blend of insider knowledge and journalistic detachment that hopefully isn’t their last collaboration.
October 5, 2020
No matter how petty or nasty you may have thought the Labour Party has been in the last three years, you will still have moments of surprise reading this book. Both the left and the right factions of the party are equally as cutthroat as the other in this well written and engaging account of the 2017 general election and it’s aftermath, finishing with the rise of Keir Starmer.
December 26, 2020
3.5 stars.
Written over the course of the year following the landslide defeat and resignation of Jeremy Corbyn, the hard-left Leader of the Labour Party, Left Out chronicles the journey from the unexpected success of the hung parliament in June 2017 to their staggering failure in December 2019. It explores how the relative success of the 2017 campaign emboldened the more aggressive operatives within ‘The Project’ to stage a total takeover of the Labour Party away from its moderate factions, starting themselves along the road that led to the ‘all or nothing’ kamikaze effort to shift the axis of British politics just two years later.
As you might expect, this was far from smooth sailing: not only did they face the expected opposition, and eventually splitting, from the moderate wing, many of whom only felt they had to up the ante after Corbyn’s expected humiliation in 2017 turned into a glimmer of hope for his faction, but conflicts also sprouted within Corbyn’s own inner circle, sparked most notably by Tom Watson, the moderate Deputy Leader gone rogue; John McDonnell, once Corbyn’s closest (and really, only) ally in Parliament; and Karie Murphy, the Executive Director of Corbyn’s Leader’s Office who would draw much controversy for her brutal and allegedly ‘bullying’ tactics. As if this wasn’t enough to contend with, the party was also rocked by ‘Me Too’ allegations, recurring Brexit quarrelling, and the infamous anti-Semitism scandal, which continues to rage on even at the time of writing, more than one year after Corbyn’s defeat.
Despite the never-ending chaos, Jeremy Corbyn himself doesn’t emerge from the narrative too badly, coming across more like a well-meaning if rather obstinate chap who became leader against the odds and found himself steering the ship through some particularly turbulent waters. However, for me at least, it was increasingly difficult to sympathise with this portrayal as Labour’s situation became increasingly dire and Corbyn’s strategy to deal with their mounting crises was so often simply to remove himself from the situation — what answers for his leadership style is often just ignoring or ghosting people in the middle of a heated dispute. I don’t find it hard to believe his wife’s alleged complaint that “He didn’t even want to do this” (p.268; all references from the first edition hardcover), but it is hard to frame him as a martyr to his cause when he neither did anything to advance his supposed values (of equality, justice, workers’ rights etc.), nor agreed to step down from the leadership even after repeated challenges and a vote of no confidence from the Parliamentary Labour Party. His general apathy towards Brexit also suggests his disassociation from the question of real consequences for the people of his country, one which, much like the final blow of the election disaster, could have been avoided through an earlier withdrawal in favour of a more capable and unifying leader.
John McDonnell runs circles around him in terms of both tactics and statecraft, although they have pretty much the same views, it seems, on everything except Brexit. I’ve seen a lot of people say they gained respect for McDonnell after reading this: I feel the same way, but obviously those who think this sort of politicking is dishonest will disapprove of his attempts to manoeuvre the party into a more viable, electable position, which again ironically mirrors the reputation of Blairites much more than that of the far left. In a surprising parallel, Tom Watson, Corbyn’s moderate Deputy, behaves almost like the protagonist of a Picaresque novel, hanging on to his position by hook or by crook, repeatedly thwarting the efforts of those who would see him ousted. I admired his steadfastness in the role as well as his blunt approach to politics: not prone to the same grandiosity as Corbyn, when the then-22-stone Watson was asked why he would not pursue the leadership himself, he simply responded that “[f]at people don’t get elected Prime Minister” (p.20). His practicality and self-awareness is wasted on the other players in the narrative, but it is clear how and why, despite his relative success in the role, these experiences made him want to retire from the front lines of politics.
However, the real mastermind of the operation ends up being Karie Murphy, who seems a more active presence but a horrific influence, almost a Margaret Thatcher of the left. A ‘kinder, gentler politics’ indeed. I was particularly horrified to read about how they suppressed allegations of sexual assault and harassment within the party, which seems to be less well known than the other controversies covered, presumably because of a lack of press coverage. This combined with the hypocrisy in celebrating Jennie Formby as ‘Lady’ General Secretary when she was really their parachute candidate, and in insisting on a female leader post-Corbyn as a cheap attempt to disqualify Keir Starmer shows the emptiness of their own cronyism and all-too-convenient exploitation of identity politics in a way which they themselves usually project on right-wingers and moderates.
If these portrayals are accurate, they certainly help to shed some light on the policy flip-flopping exhibited by the Project over Brexit. Before reading this book, I thought that there either had to be such immense pressure from Remainers within the party that Corbyn was eventually forced to change, perhaps too late, to a more Remainer-friendly second referendum position, against the inclination of his own beliefs (since the record shows that Corbyn’s decades of Euroscepticism); or, perhaps, he was simply pliable enough to waver even on this most central and pressing political issue of our day. As I have said, neither of these presents Corbyn as particularly suited for leadership. The narrative explanation that this book delivers is that Remainers within the party deliberately rebelled by making explicitly pro-EU public sentiments and going against the party line as part of an effort to shift policy to better represent the views of the party membership, which does seem to match up with their public behaviour but I suppose shows that they share guilt for the dismal outcome of this discussion with Corbyn himself, which is certainly the narrative that most Corbynite Lexiters would prefer. Still, despite this and many other moderate attempts to shift or sabotage the Project are of course included in the narrative, they cannot hold all the blame: other parts of the Brexit narrative suggest Corbyn’s relative apathy towards the issue, which is perhaps unsurprising given his overall leadership style but unfortunately presents him as rather out of touch with reality, preferring to focus on his own pet issues at the expense of the bigger picture. I am surprised that Andrew Fisher’s idea to make their policy holding an immediate second referendum didn’t gain steam over their obfuscating mess of a position in 2019, but perhaps this best illustrates the doomed effort to play to both sides of the argument, which ended up pleasing neither. This is quite arguably the greatest failure of his time at the helm.
Much of this backstabbing and expression of low cunning was kept well-hidden at the time, but has come out more and more since the heathen Starmer became leader. A particular (and ironic) foreshadowing of this was glimpsed in the banishment of Alistair Campbell from the party in May 2019, the same manoeuvre which would cause an explosion this year once applied to Corbyn himself. Left Out tells us that Campbell’s expulsion was “sanctioned from the very top” (p.222), demonstrating the pettiness of the Project towards rebels who resisted Labour’s transformation into the Corbyn Party, or the Brexit stance that put off so many once-loyal Labourites.
In light of this in particular, I would have liked more explanation of the bizarre tactics employed by the Project in the 2019 campaign, and why exactly they thought they would win. This has long baffled me. Perhaps Twitter, which leans so much to the left compared to the general population, is a culprit (in fact, the recently victorious presidential campaign for Joe Biden in the US explicitly told their advisors to stay off the site). For the left’s devotees, highly partisan ‘alternative’ media like the Canary, SQUAWKBOX, and Novara Media probably don’t help. The more metropolitan ‘champagne socialist’ parts of the left probably don’t have many opportunities to escape their bubbles. Much of the youthful activist energy so banked upon by the Project, particularly in the light of the 2017 ‘youthquake’, was poorly implemented: Uxbridge and South Ruislip, the Prime Minister’s own seat, was filled with Momentum activists sponsoring the challenge of Ali Milani, a 25-year-old student politician who, despite his tender age, already had several allegations of antisemitism of his own. Milani lost by 7,210 votes with a 37.6% share of the vote, with Boris Johnson actually enjoying a 1.8% increase in his share of the vote. In Chingford, a slightly more realistic battleground for the Labour Party, there were reportedly so many left-wing activists that the local Greggs ran out of vegan sausage roles on a daily basis. Labour lost this seat to Ian Duncan Smith, the odious father of austerity and Universal Credit, by a more modest 1,262 votes, with a small swing in their favour. Hindsight may be 20/20, but clearly a more pessimistic Labour campaign operation would have deployed these activist forces to save the Red Wall seats under threat in the North, which we saw crumble to the Tories en masse on the day of reckoning — so the question remains, why didn’t they? Why go on such a dizzying offence when the stakes are so high?
As I have said, the book doesn’t cover the movement’s state of mind enough for my liking. The same dissonance can be seen today in those who claim that Corbyn is so beloved by the people, the ‘People’s Prime Minister’ who gave a voice to the voiceless — if this is the case, why did it never translate into votes? In fact, Left Out claims that many on the inside knew deep down that Corbyn wasn’t electable, but thought they would shoot for the moon. In this context, I think simply supplying the context of simple arrogance is more concordant, for instance, with Ian Lavery’s refusal to believe that the North would ever vote Conservative (“It just won’t happen”, p.301, the basis of which is still a mystery to me), as well as Corbyn’s nonchalance over the devastation wrought upon Labour MPs in the North, which is in keeping with the mass losses of Labour-held council seats back in 2017. Lavery cannot be dismissed as a clueless Londoner — his majority in his own seat of Wansbeck narrowed sharply from over 10,000 to just 814. This was going on under his nose. Why tell activists they had a shot at unseating the Prime Minister if this wasn’t the case? Why not moderate the approach for a better result? It worries me that the attitude of the hard left so often seems to be borne out of a deadly combination of self-righteousness, insularity, and an uncanny ability to frame themselves as the plucky underdog protagonists of a Hollywood movie. Apparently avoiding these deeper-set issues, this book tends to overstate the influence of Brexit, which is not in line with what the Labour-to-Conservative swing voters told us themselves was overwhelmingly the reason for the switch — “the leadership”.
Unlike most of the drama above, the antisemitism scandal, which has resulted in the removal of the whip from Corbyn, is a battle that rages on. The reference to “Southside’s proposal to appoint compliance officers in each of Labour’s regional parties, so that anti-Semitism complaints might be dealt with away from LOTO’s prying eyes” (p.56), given the findings of the EHRC Labour antisemitism report (published several months after this book), was portentous of things to come. The report finds the party guilty of obstructing investigations (one concerning Corbyn himself, and the other Ken Livingstone) and to have failed to follow up multiple complaints, as well as of a poor complaints process which they will now be required by law to reform. The implementation of the report will hopefully represent the closure of this period in the party’s history: certainly there can be no surer sign that this is what the party intends than the removal of the whip from Corbyn himself. The Epilogue of Left Out, exemplifying the attitude of the book as a whole, makes a real effort to be fair to both sides, but cannot avoid the reality of the Project’s end: with the hard left ousted, their supporters scattered, and their leader in exile, it is hard to say what their legacy will be, or what it was all for.
Written over the course of the year following the landslide defeat and resignation of Jeremy Corbyn, the hard-left Leader of the Labour Party, Left Out chronicles the journey from the unexpected success of the hung parliament in June 2017 to their staggering failure in December 2019. It explores how the relative success of the 2017 campaign emboldened the more aggressive operatives within ‘The Project’ to stage a total takeover of the Labour Party away from its moderate factions, starting themselves along the road that led to the ‘all or nothing’ kamikaze effort to shift the axis of British politics just two years later.
As you might expect, this was far from smooth sailing: not only did they face the expected opposition, and eventually splitting, from the moderate wing, many of whom only felt they had to up the ante after Corbyn’s expected humiliation in 2017 turned into a glimmer of hope for his faction, but conflicts also sprouted within Corbyn’s own inner circle, sparked most notably by Tom Watson, the moderate Deputy Leader gone rogue; John McDonnell, once Corbyn’s closest (and really, only) ally in Parliament; and Karie Murphy, the Executive Director of Corbyn’s Leader’s Office who would draw much controversy for her brutal and allegedly ‘bullying’ tactics. As if this wasn’t enough to contend with, the party was also rocked by ‘Me Too’ allegations, recurring Brexit quarrelling, and the infamous anti-Semitism scandal, which continues to rage on even at the time of writing, more than one year after Corbyn’s defeat.
Despite the never-ending chaos, Jeremy Corbyn himself doesn’t emerge from the narrative too badly, coming across more like a well-meaning if rather obstinate chap who became leader against the odds and found himself steering the ship through some particularly turbulent waters. However, for me at least, it was increasingly difficult to sympathise with this portrayal as Labour’s situation became increasingly dire and Corbyn’s strategy to deal with their mounting crises was so often simply to remove himself from the situation — what answers for his leadership style is often just ignoring or ghosting people in the middle of a heated dispute. I don’t find it hard to believe his wife’s alleged complaint that “He didn’t even want to do this” (p.268; all references from the first edition hardcover), but it is hard to frame him as a martyr to his cause when he neither did anything to advance his supposed values (of equality, justice, workers’ rights etc.), nor agreed to step down from the leadership even after repeated challenges and a vote of no confidence from the Parliamentary Labour Party. His general apathy towards Brexit also suggests his disassociation from the question of real consequences for the people of his country, one which, much like the final blow of the election disaster, could have been avoided through an earlier withdrawal in favour of a more capable and unifying leader.
John McDonnell runs circles around him in terms of both tactics and statecraft, although they have pretty much the same views, it seems, on everything except Brexit. I’ve seen a lot of people say they gained respect for McDonnell after reading this: I feel the same way, but obviously those who think this sort of politicking is dishonest will disapprove of his attempts to manoeuvre the party into a more viable, electable position, which again ironically mirrors the reputation of Blairites much more than that of the far left. In a surprising parallel, Tom Watson, Corbyn’s moderate Deputy, behaves almost like the protagonist of a Picaresque novel, hanging on to his position by hook or by crook, repeatedly thwarting the efforts of those who would see him ousted. I admired his steadfastness in the role as well as his blunt approach to politics: not prone to the same grandiosity as Corbyn, when the then-22-stone Watson was asked why he would not pursue the leadership himself, he simply responded that “[f]at people don’t get elected Prime Minister” (p.20). His practicality and self-awareness is wasted on the other players in the narrative, but it is clear how and why, despite his relative success in the role, these experiences made him want to retire from the front lines of politics.
However, the real mastermind of the operation ends up being Karie Murphy, who seems a more active presence but a horrific influence, almost a Margaret Thatcher of the left. A ‘kinder, gentler politics’ indeed. I was particularly horrified to read about how they suppressed allegations of sexual assault and harassment within the party, which seems to be less well known than the other controversies covered, presumably because of a lack of press coverage. This combined with the hypocrisy in celebrating Jennie Formby as ‘Lady’ General Secretary when she was really their parachute candidate, and in insisting on a female leader post-Corbyn as a cheap attempt to disqualify Keir Starmer shows the emptiness of their own cronyism and all-too-convenient exploitation of identity politics in a way which they themselves usually project on right-wingers and moderates.
If these portrayals are accurate, they certainly help to shed some light on the policy flip-flopping exhibited by the Project over Brexit. Before reading this book, I thought that there either had to be such immense pressure from Remainers within the party that Corbyn was eventually forced to change, perhaps too late, to a more Remainer-friendly second referendum position, against the inclination of his own beliefs (since the record shows that Corbyn’s decades of Euroscepticism); or, perhaps, he was simply pliable enough to waver even on this most central and pressing political issue of our day. As I have said, neither of these presents Corbyn as particularly suited for leadership. The narrative explanation that this book delivers is that Remainers within the party deliberately rebelled by making explicitly pro-EU public sentiments and going against the party line as part of an effort to shift policy to better represent the views of the party membership, which does seem to match up with their public behaviour but I suppose shows that they share guilt for the dismal outcome of this discussion with Corbyn himself, which is certainly the narrative that most Corbynite Lexiters would prefer. Still, despite this and many other moderate attempts to shift or sabotage the Project are of course included in the narrative, they cannot hold all the blame: other parts of the Brexit narrative suggest Corbyn’s relative apathy towards the issue, which is perhaps unsurprising given his overall leadership style but unfortunately presents him as rather out of touch with reality, preferring to focus on his own pet issues at the expense of the bigger picture. I am surprised that Andrew Fisher’s idea to make their policy holding an immediate second referendum didn’t gain steam over their obfuscating mess of a position in 2019, but perhaps this best illustrates the doomed effort to play to both sides of the argument, which ended up pleasing neither. This is quite arguably the greatest failure of his time at the helm.
Much of this backstabbing and expression of low cunning was kept well-hidden at the time, but has come out more and more since the heathen Starmer became leader. A particular (and ironic) foreshadowing of this was glimpsed in the banishment of Alistair Campbell from the party in May 2019, the same manoeuvre which would cause an explosion this year once applied to Corbyn himself. Left Out tells us that Campbell’s expulsion was “sanctioned from the very top” (p.222), demonstrating the pettiness of the Project towards rebels who resisted Labour’s transformation into the Corbyn Party, or the Brexit stance that put off so many once-loyal Labourites.
In light of this in particular, I would have liked more explanation of the bizarre tactics employed by the Project in the 2019 campaign, and why exactly they thought they would win. This has long baffled me. Perhaps Twitter, which leans so much to the left compared to the general population, is a culprit (in fact, the recently victorious presidential campaign for Joe Biden in the US explicitly told their advisors to stay off the site). For the left’s devotees, highly partisan ‘alternative’ media like the Canary, SQUAWKBOX, and Novara Media probably don’t help. The more metropolitan ‘champagne socialist’ parts of the left probably don’t have many opportunities to escape their bubbles. Much of the youthful activist energy so banked upon by the Project, particularly in the light of the 2017 ‘youthquake’, was poorly implemented: Uxbridge and South Ruislip, the Prime Minister’s own seat, was filled with Momentum activists sponsoring the challenge of Ali Milani, a 25-year-old student politician who, despite his tender age, already had several allegations of antisemitism of his own. Milani lost by 7,210 votes with a 37.6% share of the vote, with Boris Johnson actually enjoying a 1.8% increase in his share of the vote. In Chingford, a slightly more realistic battleground for the Labour Party, there were reportedly so many left-wing activists that the local Greggs ran out of vegan sausage roles on a daily basis. Labour lost this seat to Ian Duncan Smith, the odious father of austerity and Universal Credit, by a more modest 1,262 votes, with a small swing in their favour. Hindsight may be 20/20, but clearly a more pessimistic Labour campaign operation would have deployed these activist forces to save the Red Wall seats under threat in the North, which we saw crumble to the Tories en masse on the day of reckoning — so the question remains, why didn’t they? Why go on such a dizzying offence when the stakes are so high?
As I have said, the book doesn’t cover the movement’s state of mind enough for my liking. The same dissonance can be seen today in those who claim that Corbyn is so beloved by the people, the ‘People’s Prime Minister’ who gave a voice to the voiceless — if this is the case, why did it never translate into votes? In fact, Left Out claims that many on the inside knew deep down that Corbyn wasn’t electable, but thought they would shoot for the moon. In this context, I think simply supplying the context of simple arrogance is more concordant, for instance, with Ian Lavery’s refusal to believe that the North would ever vote Conservative (“It just won’t happen”, p.301, the basis of which is still a mystery to me), as well as Corbyn’s nonchalance over the devastation wrought upon Labour MPs in the North, which is in keeping with the mass losses of Labour-held council seats back in 2017. Lavery cannot be dismissed as a clueless Londoner — his majority in his own seat of Wansbeck narrowed sharply from over 10,000 to just 814. This was going on under his nose. Why tell activists they had a shot at unseating the Prime Minister if this wasn’t the case? Why not moderate the approach for a better result? It worries me that the attitude of the hard left so often seems to be borne out of a deadly combination of self-righteousness, insularity, and an uncanny ability to frame themselves as the plucky underdog protagonists of a Hollywood movie. Apparently avoiding these deeper-set issues, this book tends to overstate the influence of Brexit, which is not in line with what the Labour-to-Conservative swing voters told us themselves was overwhelmingly the reason for the switch — “the leadership”.
Unlike most of the drama above, the antisemitism scandal, which has resulted in the removal of the whip from Corbyn, is a battle that rages on. The reference to “Southside’s proposal to appoint compliance officers in each of Labour’s regional parties, so that anti-Semitism complaints might be dealt with away from LOTO’s prying eyes” (p.56), given the findings of the EHRC Labour antisemitism report (published several months after this book), was portentous of things to come. The report finds the party guilty of obstructing investigations (one concerning Corbyn himself, and the other Ken Livingstone) and to have failed to follow up multiple complaints, as well as of a poor complaints process which they will now be required by law to reform. The implementation of the report will hopefully represent the closure of this period in the party’s history: certainly there can be no surer sign that this is what the party intends than the removal of the whip from Corbyn himself. The Epilogue of Left Out, exemplifying the attitude of the book as a whole, makes a real effort to be fair to both sides, but cannot avoid the reality of the Project’s end: with the hard left ousted, their supporters scattered, and their leader in exile, it is hard to say what their legacy will be, or what it was all for.
March 20, 2021
This... isn’t great. It feels like you’ve been trapped in the lift with the office gossip.
There’s moments of genuine insight re: some of the decisions/leadership (or lack thereof) around issues that plagued and divided the Party under Corbyn - namely antisemitism and Brexit.
But mostly, it’s what you’d expect from a Sunday Times political journalist. It’s super Westminister-focused and gives absolutely no insight as to what was happening around the country. It makes blanket Westminster-y statements like the expulsion of Blair’s spindoctor Alastair Campbell from the party infuriating “remainers” when in reality no-one outside of Westminster would care about him.
It also shows real bias - one moment that sticks out is a person quoted who basically says “Corbyn was nice to work for but was stressed by the pressures of the 2019 election” and then using it to insinuate Corbyn was suffering some kind of mental breakdown related to his age. I also don’t think any account of the Labour disaster in 2019 is complete without an examination of how a tiny set of billionaires own the U.K. press, and how viciously said media and the BBC attacked Corbyn while giving the Tories a free ride.
It’s final chapter about Keir Starmer really sticks in the throat too, just serving to underline how much Starmer has betrayed the values and principles he ran his leadership campaign on.
So, yeah. Genuinely depressing reading, and not just for reasons the authors might expect. Avoid.
There’s moments of genuine insight re: some of the decisions/leadership (or lack thereof) around issues that plagued and divided the Party under Corbyn - namely antisemitism and Brexit.
But mostly, it’s what you’d expect from a Sunday Times political journalist. It’s super Westminister-focused and gives absolutely no insight as to what was happening around the country. It makes blanket Westminster-y statements like the expulsion of Blair’s spindoctor Alastair Campbell from the party infuriating “remainers” when in reality no-one outside of Westminster would care about him.
It also shows real bias - one moment that sticks out is a person quoted who basically says “Corbyn was nice to work for but was stressed by the pressures of the 2019 election” and then using it to insinuate Corbyn was suffering some kind of mental breakdown related to his age. I also don’t think any account of the Labour disaster in 2019 is complete without an examination of how a tiny set of billionaires own the U.K. press, and how viciously said media and the BBC attacked Corbyn while giving the Tories a free ride.
It’s final chapter about Keir Starmer really sticks in the throat too, just serving to underline how much Starmer has betrayed the values and principles he ran his leadership campaign on.
So, yeah. Genuinely depressing reading, and not just for reasons the authors might expect. Avoid.
September 16, 2020
An engaging book that is a breathtaking gossip column intertwined with a funeral oration for a fallen movement. It is an even-handed breathtaking ride showing how the project ultimately defeated itself in its quest for power. At times the structure of the book is disconcerting and leaves the reader lost in the weeds of procedural politics. Nevertheless, the nuggets littered across its 367 pages are too good to ignore. However, the dark stain of anti-semitism clouds this book. Like the indelible ink of an octopus the shame of anti-semitism will rightly taint the project.
September 9, 2020
This is a period of political history which will likely spawn many accounts in the coming years, and as regards the Labour Party this sets a high bar for those to follow. It manages to be a gripping read without being partisan and indeed gave this reader new perspectives on some of the main players. Really enjoyable.
November 6, 2020
A must read but very clearly written by men, and informed by certain sources.
February 16, 2021
Maybe it is because there isn't really much of a dramatic arc in the book. The whole thing just peters out, exactly as it felt at the time.
Or maybe I just don't care about this stuff as much as I used to. So much of it just seems small. It's three hundred pages of various Labour MPs and staff fighting with each other while Corbyn doesn't do much.
If you are a fan of Corbyn you will just find it depressing, if you aren't it probably won't tell you anything you didn't already suspect about his leadership and the internal state of the labour party.
Or maybe I just don't care about this stuff as much as I used to. So much of it just seems small. It's three hundred pages of various Labour MPs and staff fighting with each other while Corbyn doesn't do much.
If you are a fan of Corbyn you will just find it depressing, if you aren't it probably won't tell you anything you didn't already suspect about his leadership and the internal state of the labour party.
March 4, 2021
A really interesting review of Corbyn’s time as Labour leader.
Includes accounts from senior politicians, journalists and advisors.
Includes accounts from senior politicians, journalists and advisors.
June 6, 2021
In December of 2019 the British electorate handed Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party a resounding defeat. Not since 1935 had the Labour Party done so badly. On the evidence accumulated in this book they were entirely right to do so.
Reading the book was depressing. No petty infighting amateurish incompetence is ignored although by the end of it there was only so much I could stomach. The best summary was delivered by by one of corbyn’s aides who in resigning summed it all up “they are a snapshot of the lack of competence, professionalism and human decency that I am no longer willing to put up with daily”. We all deserved better.
Reading the book was depressing. No petty infighting amateurish incompetence is ignored although by the end of it there was only so much I could stomach. The best summary was delivered by by one of corbyn’s aides who in resigning summed it all up “they are a snapshot of the lack of competence, professionalism and human decency that I am no longer willing to put up with daily”. We all deserved better.
September 9, 2020
A fair minded and incredibly well sourced account of the Corbyn leadership between 2017 and 2019. At times shocking, particularly the chapters about anti-Semitism and sexual harassment, the main sense that comes through the book is the indecision from all sides which led to that Groundhog Day quality that characterised the period for anyone observing with any kind of sympathy for the Labour Party. It is a generally successful account of the period, but I couldn't describe it as an enjoyable read, because the subject is just so demoralising. I also think it would have benefited from a bibliography as a way of keeping track of all the different sources.
December 30, 2020
For politicos, this book is a riveting read. For those with an involvement in left politics, I’d say it was a must-read. While not agreeing with some of the authors’ conclusions or analysis of the rise (and fall) of Jeremy Corbyn and the left over the past five years, there is more than enough in the pages of Left Out to give the reader a more rounded understanding of what transpired during the time that left politics led UK Labour and highlight some areas where lessons need to be learned. The book’s authors have done a service to both history and to those with an interest in the politics of the left. I highly recommend it.
September 17, 2020
Weak, prejudiced, flailing around, clueless and amateur. That seems to be about the best you can say about the Corbyn project and it’s abject failure outlined by this entertaining, if ultimately depressing, book. Outside of the hype, Corbyn is actually given a fairly easy ride over anti-Semitism and this feels, to me, like a quite gentle evisceration. Lots is not tackled. No background to the bankrupt politics of the main protagonists. Not enough on left politics generally. But I suppose that was not the point of the book. Enjoyable.
June 12, 2021
A very balanced look at the last two years of Corbynism. I was never sure of the personal views of the authors which is the sign of very good journalists. However it was too gossipy and written in a slightly annoying chummy Westminster style.
Read
September 16, 2020Perversely this slow rolling disaster made me feel a little comforted since the ALP can’t possibly be such a multi dimensional clusterfuck
November 9, 2020
A detailed, timely, mostly even-handed, sometimes gossipy account focused on the period from Corbyn's shockingly strong 2017 General Election performance to his fall after the nightmarish 2019 General Election, Pogrund and Maguire draw on interviews with Corbyn loyalists and his many, many enemies in the PLP to examine just how everything went so terribly wrong.
A narrative account that takes in Corbyn's character (both good and bad), the chaotic factionalism and arcane infighting, the PLP's plotting, the Corbynistas' personality cult and the party machine's sabotage of the sacred Project, this book does a fine job of explaining how it all ended in such a mess.
Jeremy Corbyn was able to engage young people in politics in a way that few politicians could ever hope to but his disinterest in Brexit, his stubbornness/blind spot on anti-Semitism, his indecision, his inflexibility and fundamental dislike of confrontation doomed him.
Clearly, Corbyn wasn't helped by his loyalty to some dodgy people with bad ideas and through it all, was in a constant Cold War with his own deputy Tom Watson, a man who comes across variously as a principled champion of a more moderate Labour Party and a self-interested, self-obsessed, two-faced, scheming tosser.
The dysfunctionality of Corbyn's office and his sometimes misguided sense of fairness - his reaction to the Skripal poisonings is fist-chewingly embarrassing - are almost painful to read. Eventually, his own office started shutting him out of things, while claiming to act in his, the party, the Project, and the nation's interests.
The sixth chapter 'For the Many, Not the Jew' is a brilliant summary of Corbynite Labour's anti-Semitism nightmare and Corbyn's own failings here are clear. Reading this, roughly at the same time he was suspended from the Labour Party after his grotesque reaction to the EHRC report, I realised he's learned nothing since 2018.
John McDonnell is one of the more fascinating characters in this story. A true believer, and long-time friend of Corbyn, he actually grasps the point that the only way to actually help people is to gain power and his single-minded obsession with that, and the alliances he makes, is fascinating. Sadly, along the way, no matter how sensible or principled his positions might be, he engenders immense amounts of mistrust.
Labour's Brexit nightmare brings in a cameo from former Stoke-on-Trent MP Gareth Snell. I only mention this because Snell once called me "churlish and infantile". I may be both of those things, but I'm not a slippery, ineffectual clown, Gareth. I'm also not quite as bald as you.
The account of the 2019 General Election campaign is simply sad and painful but the book at least ends on a somewhat hopeful note with Keir Starmer taking over as leader. History will undoubtedly judge Corbyn more kindly than the tabloids did but no matter how many people chanted and sang along, he left Labour ruinously weaker than it was when he became leader.
A narrative account that takes in Corbyn's character (both good and bad), the chaotic factionalism and arcane infighting, the PLP's plotting, the Corbynistas' personality cult and the party machine's sabotage of the sacred Project, this book does a fine job of explaining how it all ended in such a mess.
Jeremy Corbyn was able to engage young people in politics in a way that few politicians could ever hope to but his disinterest in Brexit, his stubbornness/blind spot on anti-Semitism, his indecision, his inflexibility and fundamental dislike of confrontation doomed him.
Clearly, Corbyn wasn't helped by his loyalty to some dodgy people with bad ideas and through it all, was in a constant Cold War with his own deputy Tom Watson, a man who comes across variously as a principled champion of a more moderate Labour Party and a self-interested, self-obsessed, two-faced, scheming tosser.
The dysfunctionality of Corbyn's office and his sometimes misguided sense of fairness - his reaction to the Skripal poisonings is fist-chewingly embarrassing - are almost painful to read. Eventually, his own office started shutting him out of things, while claiming to act in his, the party, the Project, and the nation's interests.
The sixth chapter 'For the Many, Not the Jew' is a brilliant summary of Corbynite Labour's anti-Semitism nightmare and Corbyn's own failings here are clear. Reading this, roughly at the same time he was suspended from the Labour Party after his grotesque reaction to the EHRC report, I realised he's learned nothing since 2018.
John McDonnell is one of the more fascinating characters in this story. A true believer, and long-time friend of Corbyn, he actually grasps the point that the only way to actually help people is to gain power and his single-minded obsession with that, and the alliances he makes, is fascinating. Sadly, along the way, no matter how sensible or principled his positions might be, he engenders immense amounts of mistrust.
Labour's Brexit nightmare brings in a cameo from former Stoke-on-Trent MP Gareth Snell. I only mention this because Snell once called me "churlish and infantile". I may be both of those things, but I'm not a slippery, ineffectual clown, Gareth. I'm also not quite as bald as you.
The account of the 2019 General Election campaign is simply sad and painful but the book at least ends on a somewhat hopeful note with Keir Starmer taking over as leader. History will undoubtedly judge Corbyn more kindly than the tabloids did but no matter how many people chanted and sang along, he left Labour ruinously weaker than it was when he became leader.
October 24, 2020
Politics reduced to office politics. The authors really get into the weeds of meetings, emails and phone calls, and you get the sense that they didn't want to leave any material out. Stylistically it is a bit uneven. There are great short and evocative pen portraits of the cast of characters, but sometimes sentences drag on for so long it becomes difficult to hold onto where they are heading. It's a compelling read nonetheless, and very fair-minded, particularly on the thorny question of antisemitism. It is ultimately a case study of leadership and organisation, the impact of personalities, structures and corporate culture on the success (or failure) of an enterprise.
October 25, 2020
Left Out - Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire
Left Out covers the story of the Labour Party from their surprise success in the 2017 General Election through to the 2019 General Election and the election of Keir Starmer as Leader of the Opposition in fascinating detail.
The book sets out what life in the Leader of the Opposition’s office (LOTO) was like throughout this period and how “the Project” reacted to events that came their way (the Project being the term the left wing leadership referred to itself and the vision they had for the UK as).
The 2017-2019 Parliament had no shortage of drama: whether it be Theresa May’s three meaningful votes and subsequent resignation, the prorogation of Parliament by Boris Johnson only for it to be recalled or extension after extension of the UK’s membership of the European Union finally resulting in 2019 General Election, this sitting of Parliament certainly had no shortage of chaos. This book details how LOTO reacted and dealt with a lot of the parliamentary trench warfare that occurred during this turbulent and historic time in UK politics and life.
In addition to covering of issues inside of Parliament the book also covers the internal management of the Labour Party by Jeremy Corbyn and LOTO. Pogrund and Maguire offer unique insights into how the leadership dealt with issue such as a section of their MPs breaking away to form their own party. They also detail how LOTO plotted a coup along with the hard left elements of the party to sack the Deputy Leader Tom Watson and abolish his role, a coup which was, of course, botched.
The infighting between LOTO and the MPs on the Labour back benches, known as Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), is also covered. It is clear that from Corbyn’s election as leader in 2015 that many in the PLP did not accept this and some actively tried to sabotage it. The surprise success of the 2017 election when Labour gained seats and denied the Conservatives a majority did result in most of PLP either signing up to Corbyn and his style leadership or being ambivalent to it. There were some though who still did not though. A leader trying to lead without his MPs fully supporting him is bound to run into some trouble and the book shows this trouble and the motivation for it.
The internal fighting within LOTO and the Project itself did come as a sort of surprise whilst reading it. Whilst many people know of the issues between LOTO and the PLP, the fighting at the top between Corbyn’s closest aides and confidents had previously not been covered in great depth. The fighting over which way the party should go on Brexit, over what policies to implement and, of course, over how to deal with the issue of anti-Semitism. Internal fighting which in some cases lead to the bullying and intimidation of members of LOTO.
It is without question the issue of anti-Semitism is something that has stained the Labour Party, that is something I’m sure no one denies. What Pogrund and Maguire show is that there was a leadership that was either unable or in some cases unwilling to grasp this nettle. Unable due to tools not being at their disposal or there not being the necessary competence for the sheer scale of the challenge, unwilling due to in some cases stubbornness or personal interest. Whilst it is of course a delicate issue still to this day in the nation and in Labour, I sincerely hope the points raised in the book are genuinely wrestled with because that is the only way the scourge can be erased from the Party, it will not just go away with a change in leadership, nor is it a valid response to say it does not exist or has been blown out of proportion, this is something that has to be dealt with. I really do hope this book shows the true scale of the issue and goes towards to fight to rid the party of it.
A chapter that particularly stands out and that yet again shows the divisions in LOTO and the leadership is the chapter on the Salisbury nerve agent attack of 2018. Whilst I’m sure much work has been and will be produced on the incident itself in which the Russian state killed an innocent member of the public and injured 4 others including a police officer, this chapter sets out LOTO’s reaction to the event, a reaction which an aide to the Shadow Chancellor described at the time as losing them the next election. It is bewildering to read that there was actual consternation in LOTO as to whether or not to assign the blame to Russia. The divisions were stark, LOTO aides urging the leader not condemn Russia and removing any criticism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from his speeches, meanwhile there were Shadow Cabinet members like the Shadow Foreign Secretary and Shadow Defence Secretary desperately urging him to condemn an act of state sponsored terrorism on UK soil. A functional work place it was not.
To those sympathetic to Corbyn, instances such as this were blown out of proportion or irrelevant. To those critical of him, these were the very things that they believed disqualified him from being a suitable candidate for Prime Minister. Whilst it is hard to say whether Corbyn’s response to the Salisbury attack played a part in the collapse of the Project, what is clear is that this was the time when Corbyn’s personal approval rating collapsed, never to fully recover to the levels he had circa the 2017 election.
Now I’m afraid it’s time to move onto Brexit.
This book doesn’t cover the ins and outs of the referendum campaign nor the negotiations that succeeded it. For that you’d be well advised to read Tim Shipman’s All Out War or Fall Out. What Pogrund and Maguire instead cover is the Labour Party’s internal battle to find out exactly what it wanted after the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union. Labour, it’s voters and members, faced an immediate issue and some, although not all, in the leadership recognised this. Industrial northern working class seats like Workington, Blyth Valley, and even Tony Blair’s former seat of Sedgefield all voted to Leave. Meanwhile Labour’s city seats in places like London voted to Remain. Squaring this circle was an immediate problem.
Left Out shows how internal haggling and negotiation resulted in the Party’s position announced at its Liverpool Conference in 2018. The Party would try to force a general election and if it could no succeed then back a second referendum to stop, in their eyes, a “damaging Tory Brexit” being imposed. Despite this being the public position of the Party, many at all levels whether they be LOTO, Shadow Cabinet or PLP had issues with it. Some in LOTO even went so far as refusing to believe the real divide in the nation was between Leavers and Remainers but instead between “the many and the few” and therefore gave Brexit little focus or attention, a point of view they would be disabused of come 10pm on the 12th December 2019.
The book sets out a very interesting event that took place at its Party Conference in Brighton in mid 2019. Key figures in the Project such as John McDonnell and Ian Lavery were shown internal party polling showing if there was an election the Labour Party would be left with 138 MPs, their worst result since 1917 and 64 less than they would go onto win in December (their worst result since 1935). Labour were haemorrhaging remain supporting voters to the LibDems, who in this poll where predicted to win 44 seats (in reality they won 11). As one Shadow Cabinet Minister put it “the white working classes had moved away from us and the liberal intelligentsia had moved away from us - in either direction of the Brexit result.” This is all the more interesting given how the current Labour Leader, Keir Starmer, is criticised by those still loyal to the previous leadership for the 2019 election result.
They put forward the notion that it’s was Starmer’s policy that cost them white working class Leave voters, unaware that those voters had already jumped ship to Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. If anything, it’s seems without Starmer’s intervention (along with other key people in the leadership such as John McDonnell) to make the party more pro-remain and more pro-second referendum, the party would have lost even more voters and seats, namely to the LibDems. The book shows how this impacting on LOTO’s thinking and actions going into the 2019 election, as well as covering the election itself too.
As one would imagine the 2019 General Election is covered at some length. Pogrund and Maguire set out the behind the scenes of the campaign, detailing everything from the head to head debates to the formation of Labour’s attack lines and policies, as well as what went wrong. Once again they reveal great details and stories from within Labour.
In its final chapter Left Out covers the leadership campaign and election that brought Keir Starmer to helm of the Labour Party. It is impressive that such thoroughly researched and well sourced work on this topic is already being put in print given that (at the time of writing) it is in such recent memory. The chapter does show signs of what type of leader Starmer will be but in other areas raises some questions, questions that I’m sure will be answered in the coming years as we approach the 2024 election. In the last 75 years there has only been three Labour winners, will Starmer be the fourth? Time will tell.
Overall, this is a real page turner of a book. There’s some great details and insights of life inside the Labour Party of 2017-2019 and the challenges it faced. Pogrund and Maguire do a fantastic job in illustrating the Corbyn years. By all accounts this seems to be set out in a pretty neutral stance too, with both wings of the Labour Party and former/current key party officials praising the work. Left Out details different sides and different viewpoints from within Labour and allows the reader to make their own mind up - which given it’s a book about one of the most decisive periods in British politics is quite the achievement.
Left Out covers the story of the Labour Party from their surprise success in the 2017 General Election through to the 2019 General Election and the election of Keir Starmer as Leader of the Opposition in fascinating detail.
The book sets out what life in the Leader of the Opposition’s office (LOTO) was like throughout this period and how “the Project” reacted to events that came their way (the Project being the term the left wing leadership referred to itself and the vision they had for the UK as).
The 2017-2019 Parliament had no shortage of drama: whether it be Theresa May’s three meaningful votes and subsequent resignation, the prorogation of Parliament by Boris Johnson only for it to be recalled or extension after extension of the UK’s membership of the European Union finally resulting in 2019 General Election, this sitting of Parliament certainly had no shortage of chaos. This book details how LOTO reacted and dealt with a lot of the parliamentary trench warfare that occurred during this turbulent and historic time in UK politics and life.
In addition to covering of issues inside of Parliament the book also covers the internal management of the Labour Party by Jeremy Corbyn and LOTO. Pogrund and Maguire offer unique insights into how the leadership dealt with issue such as a section of their MPs breaking away to form their own party. They also detail how LOTO plotted a coup along with the hard left elements of the party to sack the Deputy Leader Tom Watson and abolish his role, a coup which was, of course, botched.
The infighting between LOTO and the MPs on the Labour back benches, known as Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), is also covered. It is clear that from Corbyn’s election as leader in 2015 that many in the PLP did not accept this and some actively tried to sabotage it. The surprise success of the 2017 election when Labour gained seats and denied the Conservatives a majority did result in most of PLP either signing up to Corbyn and his style leadership or being ambivalent to it. There were some though who still did not though. A leader trying to lead without his MPs fully supporting him is bound to run into some trouble and the book shows this trouble and the motivation for it.
The internal fighting within LOTO and the Project itself did come as a sort of surprise whilst reading it. Whilst many people know of the issues between LOTO and the PLP, the fighting at the top between Corbyn’s closest aides and confidents had previously not been covered in great depth. The fighting over which way the party should go on Brexit, over what policies to implement and, of course, over how to deal with the issue of anti-Semitism. Internal fighting which in some cases lead to the bullying and intimidation of members of LOTO.
It is without question the issue of anti-Semitism is something that has stained the Labour Party, that is something I’m sure no one denies. What Pogrund and Maguire show is that there was a leadership that was either unable or in some cases unwilling to grasp this nettle. Unable due to tools not being at their disposal or there not being the necessary competence for the sheer scale of the challenge, unwilling due to in some cases stubbornness or personal interest. Whilst it is of course a delicate issue still to this day in the nation and in Labour, I sincerely hope the points raised in the book are genuinely wrestled with because that is the only way the scourge can be erased from the Party, it will not just go away with a change in leadership, nor is it a valid response to say it does not exist or has been blown out of proportion, this is something that has to be dealt with. I really do hope this book shows the true scale of the issue and goes towards to fight to rid the party of it.
A chapter that particularly stands out and that yet again shows the divisions in LOTO and the leadership is the chapter on the Salisbury nerve agent attack of 2018. Whilst I’m sure much work has been and will be produced on the incident itself in which the Russian state killed an innocent member of the public and injured 4 others including a police officer, this chapter sets out LOTO’s reaction to the event, a reaction which an aide to the Shadow Chancellor described at the time as losing them the next election. It is bewildering to read that there was actual consternation in LOTO as to whether or not to assign the blame to Russia. The divisions were stark, LOTO aides urging the leader not condemn Russia and removing any criticism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from his speeches, meanwhile there were Shadow Cabinet members like the Shadow Foreign Secretary and Shadow Defence Secretary desperately urging him to condemn an act of state sponsored terrorism on UK soil. A functional work place it was not.
To those sympathetic to Corbyn, instances such as this were blown out of proportion or irrelevant. To those critical of him, these were the very things that they believed disqualified him from being a suitable candidate for Prime Minister. Whilst it is hard to say whether Corbyn’s response to the Salisbury attack played a part in the collapse of the Project, what is clear is that this was the time when Corbyn’s personal approval rating collapsed, never to fully recover to the levels he had circa the 2017 election.
Now I’m afraid it’s time to move onto Brexit.
This book doesn’t cover the ins and outs of the referendum campaign nor the negotiations that succeeded it. For that you’d be well advised to read Tim Shipman’s All Out War or Fall Out. What Pogrund and Maguire instead cover is the Labour Party’s internal battle to find out exactly what it wanted after the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union. Labour, it’s voters and members, faced an immediate issue and some, although not all, in the leadership recognised this. Industrial northern working class seats like Workington, Blyth Valley, and even Tony Blair’s former seat of Sedgefield all voted to Leave. Meanwhile Labour’s city seats in places like London voted to Remain. Squaring this circle was an immediate problem.
Left Out shows how internal haggling and negotiation resulted in the Party’s position announced at its Liverpool Conference in 2018. The Party would try to force a general election and if it could no succeed then back a second referendum to stop, in their eyes, a “damaging Tory Brexit” being imposed. Despite this being the public position of the Party, many at all levels whether they be LOTO, Shadow Cabinet or PLP had issues with it. Some in LOTO even went so far as refusing to believe the real divide in the nation was between Leavers and Remainers but instead between “the many and the few” and therefore gave Brexit little focus or attention, a point of view they would be disabused of come 10pm on the 12th December 2019.
The book sets out a very interesting event that took place at its Party Conference in Brighton in mid 2019. Key figures in the Project such as John McDonnell and Ian Lavery were shown internal party polling showing if there was an election the Labour Party would be left with 138 MPs, their worst result since 1917 and 64 less than they would go onto win in December (their worst result since 1935). Labour were haemorrhaging remain supporting voters to the LibDems, who in this poll where predicted to win 44 seats (in reality they won 11). As one Shadow Cabinet Minister put it “the white working classes had moved away from us and the liberal intelligentsia had moved away from us - in either direction of the Brexit result.” This is all the more interesting given how the current Labour Leader, Keir Starmer, is criticised by those still loyal to the previous leadership for the 2019 election result.
They put forward the notion that it’s was Starmer’s policy that cost them white working class Leave voters, unaware that those voters had already jumped ship to Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. If anything, it’s seems without Starmer’s intervention (along with other key people in the leadership such as John McDonnell) to make the party more pro-remain and more pro-second referendum, the party would have lost even more voters and seats, namely to the LibDems. The book shows how this impacting on LOTO’s thinking and actions going into the 2019 election, as well as covering the election itself too.
As one would imagine the 2019 General Election is covered at some length. Pogrund and Maguire set out the behind the scenes of the campaign, detailing everything from the head to head debates to the formation of Labour’s attack lines and policies, as well as what went wrong. Once again they reveal great details and stories from within Labour.
In its final chapter Left Out covers the leadership campaign and election that brought Keir Starmer to helm of the Labour Party. It is impressive that such thoroughly researched and well sourced work on this topic is already being put in print given that (at the time of writing) it is in such recent memory. The chapter does show signs of what type of leader Starmer will be but in other areas raises some questions, questions that I’m sure will be answered in the coming years as we approach the 2024 election. In the last 75 years there has only been three Labour winners, will Starmer be the fourth? Time will tell.
Overall, this is a real page turner of a book. There’s some great details and insights of life inside the Labour Party of 2017-2019 and the challenges it faced. Pogrund and Maguire do a fantastic job in illustrating the Corbyn years. By all accounts this seems to be set out in a pretty neutral stance too, with both wings of the Labour Party and former/current key party officials praising the work. Left Out details different sides and different viewpoints from within Labour and allows the reader to make their own mind up - which given it’s a book about one of the most decisive periods in British politics is quite the achievement.
May 14, 2023
As a labour voting leftist and someone who was thrilled by Corbyn's election I chose to read this book to confront my younger more-radical self, a form of self-flagellation if you like.
However I found myself immediately enthralled by the depth of research, contextualisation and balance provided by the book. It shined a light on the key issues of Corbyn's tenure, brexit, anti-semitism, internal party strife, without bias and factionalism.
In the wake of Brexit, Trump and Covid politics has changed considerably. To me this book served as an examination of a common problem on the left. Sincerity and empathy must be balanced with competency and consistency.
However I found myself immediately enthralled by the depth of research, contextualisation and balance provided by the book. It shined a light on the key issues of Corbyn's tenure, brexit, anti-semitism, internal party strife, without bias and factionalism.
In the wake of Brexit, Trump and Covid politics has changed considerably. To me this book served as an examination of a common problem on the left. Sincerity and empathy must be balanced with competency and consistency.
September 18, 2020
A brilliant read on an extraordinary and ultimately tragic period in Labour and left-wing politics. Rigorous and ultimately very fair to the leadership, Pogrund and Maguire depict a Party not just at war with itself, but fighting multiple internal battles on multiple fronts at any given time.
Corbyn’s morally bankrupt failure to deal with anti-semitism, and highly questionable take on defence made him profoundly unfit to lead the party. But what comes across as strongly here is an utter lack of aptitude for leadership. He simply didn’t have the skillset required, nor the ability or willingness to develop it.
Fantastic book.
Corbyn’s morally bankrupt failure to deal with anti-semitism, and highly questionable take on defence made him profoundly unfit to lead the party. But what comes across as strongly here is an utter lack of aptitude for leadership. He simply didn’t have the skillset required, nor the ability or willingness to develop it.
Fantastic book.
September 27, 2020
An excellent behind the scenes examination of the Corbyn administration from the heady days of the 2017 election through to its catastrophic fall in December 2019 and the subsequent rise of Starmer.
This is one of the best political books I've read in quite some time. Filled with page after page of revelation and genuine surprise, it hooked me in and kept me gripped throughout. Corbyn, for better or worse, changed British politics and the Labour Party. This is a fascinating study of "the Project" that held sway over the left for several years and the dramatic consequences of this period.
Utterly compelling, and a very enjoyable read!
This is one of the best political books I've read in quite some time. Filled with page after page of revelation and genuine surprise, it hooked me in and kept me gripped throughout. Corbyn, for better or worse, changed British politics and the Labour Party. This is a fascinating study of "the Project" that held sway over the left for several years and the dramatic consequences of this period.
Utterly compelling, and a very enjoyable read!
September 24, 2020
Brilliantly Insightful
An outstanding achievement by two novice non-fiction writers, the book details the inside story of Labour's key players between the 2019 and 2020 general elections. It's frank, insightful and objective in its analysis. It has no axe to grind and instead explains the unfolding events and actions of its key decision-makers, if that's not an oxymoron, that led to Labour's catastrophic defeat in 2019. Written by two gifted journalists who are a credit to their trade this is a must-read book for anyone interested in modern, British politics.
An outstanding achievement by two novice non-fiction writers, the book details the inside story of Labour's key players between the 2019 and 2020 general elections. It's frank, insightful and objective in its analysis. It has no axe to grind and instead explains the unfolding events and actions of its key decision-makers, if that's not an oxymoron, that led to Labour's catastrophic defeat in 2019. Written by two gifted journalists who are a credit to their trade this is a must-read book for anyone interested in modern, British politics.
April 2, 2021
I believe the chief significance of this book is its airing of a couple of scandals which otherwise received little attention. It almost succeeds in expressing a crucial description of Corbyn's unsuitability for extraordinary scrutiny and high office (his reliance on others; his insecurities; his indecisiveness; his defensiveness, etc.), but stutters because it lacks substantive psychological insight on the man, instead repeating canards and rumours. As a partial catalogue of internal natter, it has value.
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