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Sir KeirStarmer made the leap from Leader of the Opposition to Prime Minister in onlyfour years, one of just a handful of politicians to have done so since 1945. Yetthe landslide majority that Labour secured under him in July 2024 has beendescribed as 'loveless' and his first months in Downing Street wereovershadowed by rows and controversies, turning what should have been apolitical honeymoon into a period of sustained turbulence. In this fullyrevised and updated edition of his 2021 biography, Michael Ashcroft traces how Starmerwent from schoolboy socialist to radical lawyer and Director of Public Prosecutionsbefore - aged fifty-two - becoming an MP, then Labour leader and ultimately theoccupant of No. 10. Revealingpreviously unknown details which help to explain what makes Starmer tick, this carefulexamination of Britain's first Labour Prime Minister for fourteen years offersvoters the chance to assess his character and his political instincts. Havingturned his party into an election-winning machine, his goal is to transformBritain into one of the most progressive states in the world. Does he have whatit takes to succeed?

The first meeting between Ernest Hemingwayand Orson Welles ended in thrown punches and exchanged insults. This mostunlikely of pairings would go on to have a tumultuous friendship that wouldlast for the next twenty-five years. Lyrical and unafraid to tackle thedifficulty of conveying the lives of two legendary self-mythologisers, thisfascinating literary biography explores their intersecting paths, passions andlove for Spain. Brought together by the Spanish Civil War and bound bybullfighting and the high life, Hemingway and Welles found their lives and artintertwining for more than two decades, as their fates gradually began tomirror one another. Pete Carvill, author of theacclaimed Death of a Boxer, uses extensive research and literaryflourish to bring to life this epic tale of two of the twentieth century's mostformidable figures.

In Western Europe, we typicallyassociate Vikings with the storm-tossed waters of the North Sea and the NorthAtlantic, the deep Scandinavian fjords and the attacks on the monasteries andsettlements of north-western Europe. This popular image rarely includes theriver systems of Russia and Ukraine, the wide sweep of the Eurasian steppe, thefar shores of the Caspian Sea, the incense and rituals of the Eastern OrthodoxChurch and the high walls and towers of the city of Constantinople. Yet formany Viking raiders, traders and settlers, it was the road to the East thatbeckoned. These Viking adventurers foundedthe Norse-Slavic dynasties of the Rus, which are entangled in the bitterlycontested origin myths of Russia and Ukraine. The Rus were the first communityin the region to convert to Christianity - in its Eastern Orthodox form - andso they are at the heart of the concept of 'Holy Russia'. Russian rulers havefrequently referenced these Norse origins when trying to enhance their powerand secure control over the Ukrainian lands, most recently demonstrated byVladimir Putin as his justification for seizing Crimea and invading Ukraine. In this fascinating and timelybook, historian Martyn Whittock explores the important but often misunderstoodand manipulated role played by the Vikings in the origins of Russian power, thedeadly consequences of which we are still living with today.

Atthe age of fifty, and despite feeling like he was betraying the adoptiveparents who loved him so much, journalist and broadcaster Andrew Pierce beganto tentatively search for his birth mother - only to discover that she had doneeverything she could to ensure he would never find her. Whenhe finally tracks her down, the mystery only deepens, leading him to Ireland toseek out information about the man who may or may not have been his father. During his search, Andrew discovers horrifying revelations about the orphanagewhere he had spent the first two years of his life and attempts to forge arelationship with the woman who gave him away. Thiscandid story is a heartwarming page-turner that takes the reader on anextraordinary journey. Full of amusing and arresting anecdotes, at its heartlies the inspirational story of one man's search for his birth mother and whathappened when he finally found her.

Duringnearly two decades in the adrenaline-filled, egotistical and stressful world ofParliament, Mark Field had a remarkable capacity for getting into high-profilescrapes - most famously in his close friendship with future Prime Minister LizTruss, his role in David Cameron's Piggate scandal and his skirmish with protestersat Mansion House. Fromhis first foray into student politics at Oxford, where he got to know David Miliband,Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove and Keir Starmer, to his years as a Foreign OfficeMinister alongside Boris Johnson and Rory Stewart, Mark casts an unsparing eyeover forty years of British political life. Crammed with vivid pen portraits ofsome of the most influential political figures of our age, this wry andincisive memoir also reflects candidly on the changes that have taken place inthe UK during Mark's lifetime. Recognisingthat his has been a golden generation that has benefited from a range ofopportunities now denied to younger Britons, Mark emphasises how ourunrealistic sense of exceptionalism risks holding us back from the urgent reformnow needed in so many of our institutions. Above all, he argues that post-Brexit,it is the Conservative Party's failure to ensure we take responsibility for ourown fate that has led to its rapid decline and fall.

What really makes the British royal family tick? It?s a question that royal watchers have pondered for as long as there has been a royal family. And the answe? ell, surprisingly, it?s not the royal family?s devotion to duty, it?s not their wealth or their status, it?s not even their popularity (or notoriety!). No, what really makes the royal family tick is the huge body of servants and staff past and present who feed and clothe the royals, organise their days, polish their shoes, carry the deer and pheasants they shoot, and even put the toothpaste on their toothbrushes. If you want to find out who these servants are, what they do and why, in so many cases, they devote their whole lives to royal service, then this book is for you.Some servants became utterly indispensable to the royals for whom they worked ? Elizabeth II?s childhood nanny Bobo MacDonald, for example, was closer to the late Queen than anyone in her family, not excepting even her husband Prince Philip and her sister Princess Margaret.At the other end of the spectrum, some members of staff found their royal employers arrogant, overbearing, snobbish and even infantile. As one recent member of the Kensington Palace team put it: ?What you get with one or two members of the royal family is a public angel and a private devil! And only the staff see the private devil!?

Inthis compelling book, Martin Brunt, crime correspondent for Sky News, draws onthe most shocking and harrowing stories he's covered over the past thirty yearsto document the life of a crime reporter and assess the public obsession withcrime that his reporting caters for. He also considers the wider relationshipbetween the press and the police, the impact of social media and the questionof why some crimes are ignored while others grip the nation. Featuringundisclosed details on some of the biggest cases Brunt has covered, from the'Diamond Wheezers' to Fred and Rose West, this gripping blend of storytellingand analysis is not only a fascinating insight into the nature of crime reportingbut also a reflection on the purpose of the profession in the first place.

For half a century, Tony Benn wasBritain's leading radical, defying the leadership of the Labour Party andstaking out the moral high ground. His principled stands and spellbindingoratory commanded the respect of friends and foes alike. Benn was a stridentvoice for peace in a troubled world, notably as a key figure of opposition tothe invasion of Iraq. His influence stretched even beyond the grave, with the2016 Brexit referendum owing everything to Benn's promotion of referendums aspart of his concept of popular democracy. This comprehensively revisededition of Jad Adams's classic biography, updated with a new introduction tomark the centenary of Benn's birth, was written with unparalleled access to hisprivate records. Chronicling the behind-the-scenes story of this remarkableman's rise and fall, and his triumphant return as the conscience of the nation,this acclaimed biography explores Benn's continuing legacy in 21st-centuryBritain.

When MichaelHeseltine wrote his acclaimed autobiography, Life in the Jungle, heassumed his political career was over. He returned to Haymarket, his publishingbusiness, and intended to explore more of the world and pursue his passions outsidepolitics. Hisassumption was wrong. David Cameron called him, tentatively at first butgradually with increased responsibility, back to the corridors of power. This secondmemoir is a potpourri of reminiscences about Heseltine's life and previouslyunexplored aspects of his stellar political career. But the main reason for Heseltinetaking up his pen again has been to look back on the fundamental changes he wasable to mastermind while in government and to set out the policies that areurgently needed to unite the country by driving growth, increasing prosperityand restoring hope. He combines this with new revelations about the seismicWestland scandal, the establishment cover-up that caused him to resign fromMargaret Thatcher's Cabinet, and a damning assessment of what he considers thegrievous act of self-harm inflicted on Britain by Brexit. Thisextraordinary new memoir offers an urgent agenda to rebuild Britain from one ofour last great statesmen, who has been at the forefront of business andpolitics for the past sixty years.

Theacclaimed Return to Growth Volume One by Jon Moynihan - one of our finesteconomic thinkers - addressed the mystery of why growth has deserted westerndemocracies like the UK and wrote a tough prescription to cure our economicills. Continuinghis vital examination in Volume Two, Moynihan looks at the causes of our stagnation,reminding readers of the three 'devils' that affect our ability to achievegrowth - high government spending, excessive tax and regulation and too muchbureaucratic interference and waste - and finding that the new UK governmentshows no sign of addressing them. He then isolates and delves into the threecrucial 'angels' that support growth in the economy and that we urgently needto embrace - free markets, free trade and sound money. He concludes with a setof practical steps on how we can restructure our government and economy, so asto return it to the growth the UK has been so desperately lacking for the pastseveral decades. Inthis powerful manifesto for economic change, Moynihan combines hisextraordinary business acuity with a profound political overview, making anauthoritative moral case for action, outlining the steps we can take both toreverse our decline and to avert impending economic disaster.

Group Captain Gilbert Insall holdsa unique record: he is the only person to have both won a Victoria Cross andescaped successfully from a German prisoner of war camp during the First WorldWar. The Madness of Courage describes how, when forced down by enginedamage after destroying a German fighter, Gilbert ignored intensive shelling inorder to repair his aircraft and return to base. But a few weeks later, he wasshot down and captured. And thus began a distinguished career in prisonbreaking. He tunnelled out of Heidelbergprison camp and later hid among boxes on a horse-drawn cart to get away fromCrefeld, each time being recaptured. Then, in Stroehen, Gilbert and severalcompanions concealed themselves in a claustrophobically small space they hadexcavated under the floor of the bathhouse. They remained there for seventeenhours, while a fruitless search for them was carried out, and eventuallyemerged and successfully reached Holland. Meticulously told by Gilbert'sgreat-nephew, the critically acclaimed intelligence historian Tony Insall, TheMadness of Courage is a gripping true story about a remarkable man at atime before the Geneva Convention was signed, when conditions for prisoners ofwar were often appalling and the British War Office did little to helpprisoners escape. Instead, Gilbert's family, assisted by French intelligence,gave him the support he needed to break out of captivity in an extraordinaryfeat of bravery, resilience and ingenuity.

America wasthe shining city on a hill. It was the country at the forefront of the worlddemocratic order, the global policeman, the might of its military matched onlyby the depth of its financial reserves. America was the one the world listenedto, whether it wanted to or not. So what happene? ell, a lotof things. In this searing account, Alan Friedman shows how, from thedisastrous Vietnam War to Barack Obama's bungled response to the Arab Spring,American intervention is no longer the decisive action it once was. And now,with the rise of China and Russia, coupled with America's prostration of itselffollowing the election of Donald Trump, the decline of its authority is onlyhastening. We move now,Friedman argues, into the New World Disorder. In this dangerous and unstableworld, the Washington-enforced liberal order is receding, and a new set ofanxieties and alliances are in ascendance. What is America's place in thi? hich powers will emerge as leaders? Will the European Union count at all? Weknow one thing: the New World Disorder will challenge Western values tobreaking point.