The Usual Suspects

history of the Whips offices  in Parliament, breaking a long taboo that much of what happens there is meant to be confidential. As it happens, it looks as if everyone he’s interviewed can’t wait to spill the beans. In fact, too much so. For political nerds, it’s all fascinating but could have been 100 pages shorter had the author not felt obliged to include at least a couple of anecdotes from all his informants – even if they added nothing to the narrative. Everyone denies having a ‘little black book’ and there is a lot of care and compassion on display. I have no grounds to disbelieve anything, so I’ll stick to ‘no comment’ but like many political memoirs, it is at its best telling the inside story of events with which most of us are familiar. Brexit in particular comes across as a self-indulgent pantomime, so it probably makes this volume a very suitable seasonal gift.