Things Fall Apart

‘Hilarious, insightful and has that rare quality of making politics fun. A brilliant book everyone should read, whoever you vote for.’ Owen Jones, author of The Establishment

From the giddy heights of New Labour’s landslide victory in 1997 to the shock result of the 2017 snap election, these are the frank and funny memoirs of one bewildered Labour activist who tried to carry on as usual long after politics had stopped making sense.

With a literary flair that has been compared to Donald Trump’s tweets, John O’Farrell attempts to explain the alarming rise of populist politics, Labour’s twenty-year identity crisis, and why you should never tell your mother you are doing a radio phone-in, unless you want her ringing up to tell everyone she agrees with you. On everything.

Along the way, John stood for parliament against Theresa May but failed to step into her shoes; he took his campaigning skills to America (but still Obama got in); and he was dubbed ‘the sickest man in politics’ by the Daily Mail when in truth he’s only the second or third.

The long-awaited sequel to the best-selling Things Can Only Get Better is for everyone who could use a good laugh after Brexit, Trump and learning you were governed by the DUP. A twenty-year journey from hope to despair and back again, packed with political confessions even more outrageous than running through fields of wheat.

‘Even Conservatives will like this’ The Sunday Times