True Blue: Strange Tales from a Tory Nation [Paperback]

This is an entertaining book in places but it is also deeply flawed. It's well-written, easy to read and pretty funny. But there are three problems.

First, its key goal is to get to the heart of the Conservative Party and it comprehensively fails. There is an entertaining chapter on a Ukip conference, one on an agricultural show and another on the Country Landowners' Association. But going to the conference of a different political group and attending events with no party political affiliation is an unconvincing way to get to the heart of a political party. Another example is the bizarre chapter tacked near the end on Dagenham Town Show. It starts by claiming there is little Conservative activity in the town and then ignores party politics until the very end, when it states the procession was led by a Labour councillor. What this says about Conservatism is anyone's guess.

Secondly, the book is one long exercise in taking the mickey. It's a bit cruel, though not offensively so, to the various people - usually blameless - that the authors meet. In a way, that's part of the fun. But after a couple of hundred pages (let alone the full 248), it is wearying as the authors come across as supercilious and infantile. They will always have a cheap dig at someone, even over their appearance or dress, rather than say anything nice or enlightening. Their scattergun attack on virtually everything they see eventually becomes ridiculous, such as in the final chapter when they condemn the children's lunch boxes at Chartwell, Winston Churchill's home, for having pictures of animals on them rather than superheroes "that kids actually like". This particular example is a reflection of a broader disdain of the countryside - one chapter ends by revealing their "enormous pleasure" on spotting the road sign back to London.

Thirdly, the authors start with a pre-determined view of what constitutes Conservatism and then try to force the things they see into this worldview, even when they patently don't fit. There's an unintentionally funny moment when one of the authors says something homophobic to a group of Conservative activists and is disappointed to find they are embarrassed and refuse to reply in kind. Instead of taking this at face value, he assumes they must secretly think he's gay - though with no evidence whatsoever. (As other reviewers have noted, the authors are also obsessed with race but the thoughts on this don't really go anywhere. At the Dagenham Show, they refer with apparent disappointment to a group of local people who watch some Bantu dancing with "no real racial reaction.") In the end, the book is at least as much about the prejudices of the authors than any prejudices that might or might not be held by Conservative activists. The final chapter gives the game away when it defines those who visit Chartwell, and whose views are surmised from how they look, as "Conservatives" irrespective of how "they cast their vote at election time". In other words, we'll define Conservatives however we wish and then claim our book is about them.

Ultimately, the authors' desire to make fun at everyone else's expense means they fail to explain what Conservatism means in modern Britain. If you want to read an amusing (but inconsequential) book taking the fun out of politics, do read it. If you want to learn something, not so much.

One final point: the book is credited to two authors but it's written in the first person and the views of one of the authors is only expressed second-hand and occasionally. It's not totally clear what that person thinks.

I choose this book on a whim, looking forward to learning more about the grass roots of the tory party and the odd characters that certainly exist in it. What the book set down was every cliche that has ever been written about the tories based on hearsay. The book lacked on sort of structure and just lurched from one topic to another. Based on the book, my impression is that the 'authors' had a stereotypical view of the typical tory before they started this book and actively sort out people who re-enforced this. I would be interested in seeing this subject handled by someone who didn't have any previous preconceptions and looked a the subject objectively - like any proper journalist should.

In summary, a terrible book.

This is a very enjoyable book, with lots of fabulously comic material to make you laugh out loud. As a study of the conservative english and the Conservative members it provides ample evidence of the disconnect between the image of the new touchy-feely Conservative party and the behaviour and opinions of its party faithful. The book is written as an anthropological travelogue, which uses the fact that one of the writers is a savvy black Londoner and the other a white leftie Northerner to great effect as they go about campaigning with the Tories in Richmond and Battersea, taking tea with the good ladies of the Womens Institute, attending UKIP and Conservative Way Forward conventions and drinking fine wine with the Tory elite. It's a good 'behind the headlines' read for now as we gear up towards the next general election.