Tom Baldwin

A PROSPECT BOOK OF THE YEAR‘Challenging, forensic, compelling'' SATHNAM SANGHERA‘Pure centrist erotica. A myth-busting chronicle of bad-tempered, Brexit-riven England'' SUNDAY TIMES‘Wonderfully evocative. Too honest, too nuanced and too deep for any party manifesto'' MATTHEW PARRISAfter an election where people voted for a politics that our new Prime Minister describes as ''treading more lightly on people’s lives'', this must-read book charts a gentler course for a country that has suffered the ructions of profound change in recent decades.Some politicians will still talk of restoring an English birthright of liberty and the swashbuckling self-confidence to rule the waves. Others yearn for the old-fashioned morality which they claim once civilised a savage world or want to look inwards to a story of an enchanted island that can stand alone and isolated against the world. But England, by Tom Baldwin, the bestselling biographer of Keir Starmer, and Marc Stears, an influential think tank head, unravels the myths that have distorted ideas of this country and provided ammunition for culture warriors from both left and right. Instead of vainly promising to solve everything all at once, Baldwin and Stears provide clues for how a humbler, less grandiose, set of ideas rooted in real lives can help fix some of the things that have gone so badly wrong in recent years. They travel from muddy fields in the Home Counties to the ports of Plymouth and Hull. They visit the old industrial heartland of Wolverhampton, spend weekends in the worn-down seaside resort of Blackpool, then gaze up the gleaming towers of modernity on the edge of London and the dreaming spires of Oxford. Along the way, they speak with many different people who tell stories of England, including politicians Nigel Farage and David Lammy, campaigner Chrisann Jarrett, playwright James Graham and scientist Sarah Gilbert. What emerges is a startlingly fresh and vivid picture of an old country that belongs to everyone, or at least, to no one in particular.

Tom Baldwin and Marc Stears take on seven key myths that distort our ideas of England and where the country is heading. Years of political turmoil and culture wars have left people asking, what is England and where do we all go from here? Too often, the answers offered are rooted not in real lives, but in myths that have been inflated out of all proportion. Some talk of restoring an English birth-right of liberty or the global confidence to rule the waves. Others yearn for the old-fashioned morality with which, they claim, England once civilised a savage world. Still more look inwards to a story of an enchanted island that can stand alone against a hostile world. In England, Tom Baldwin and Marc Stears unravel seven myths that have distorted ideas of this country. They travel from muddy fields in the Home Counties to the ports of Plymouth and Hull. They visit the old industrial heartland of Wolverhampton, spend weekends in the worn-down seaside resort of Blackpool, then gaze up the gleaming towers of modernity on the edge of London and the dreaming spires of Oxford. Along the way, they speak with many different people who tell stories of England, including politicians like Nigel Farage, campaigner Chrisann Jarrett, playwright James Graham and scientist Sarah Gilbert. Through it all, Baldwin and Stears learn it is only by setting the myths straight that England can come to terms with its past and plot a path to the future. What emerges is a startlingly fresh and vivid real life picture of a country that belongs to everyone, or at least, to no one in particular.