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In It Together: The Inside Story of the Coalition Government Hardcover – 30 Sep 2013

by Matthew d'Ancona (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 21 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 432 pages
  • Publisher: Viking; 1st Edition edition (30 Sept. 2013)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0670919934
  • ISBN-13: 978-0670919932
  • Product Dimensions: 16.2 x 3.8 x 24 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 391,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

d'Ancona has taken the inchoate subject of the coalition and kneaded it into shape...his ultimate strength is his authorial skill...a lively phrasemaker (Financial Times)

Fascinating insights...juicy gossip...d'Ancona is one of the shrewdest, most engaging observers of the Cameron phenomenon (The Guardian)

Engaging...d'Ancona, one of the most intelligent and perceptive centre-right commentators, brilliantly charts the long years in which the two parties have clung together through thick and thin -- the rows, the rifts, the crises...He is good on the politics as well as the personalities (The Times)

An absorbing book (Evening Standard)

The first comprehensive account of the coalition's formation...d'Ancona demonstrates why he is one of the most well-connected and astute observers of modern politics...Cameron's party will want to study closely this invaluable guide (Daily Telegraph)

An intriguing read...This is a book about high politics rather than grand political debate...This book is very much an inside account of the past three years (Mail on Sunday)

About the Author

Matthew d'Ancona is the award-winning political columnist for The Sunday Telegraph, Evening Standard and GQ. Previously, he was Editor of The Spectator, steering the magazine to record circulation. In 2007, he was named Editor of the Year (Current Affairs) at the BSME Awards. In 2011, he won the award for 'Commentariat of the Year', the highest honour at the Comment Awards. He lives in east London.

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsA bit plodding
By Densie on 21 Dec. 2013
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I usually enjoy most political books. I like this one & have read other Matthew d'Ancona books but it doesn't flow as well as other books I've read. I am familiar with the territory and find it a bit 'he said, she said'. I still like it & would recommend it but it could have been much better.
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4.0 out of 5 starsUseful but over-friendly account of the coalition
By William Podmore on 14 April 2015
Format: Paperback
This is an extremely well-informed account of the coalition. Unsurprisingly, given that d’Ancona is a political columnist for the Sunday Telegraph and the Evening Standard, this book puts all the coalition’s acts in the best possible light.

He notes that the coalition’s Programme for Government pledged to ‘stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS’. It also pledged to hire fewer spin doctors. The coalition broke both these pledges and many others too.

In 2006 David Cameron told the Conservative party conference, “Tony Blair explained his priorities in three words: education, education, education. I can do it in three letters: NHS.” But come 2015’s election campaign, the NHS was not even one of his party’s top six priorities.

Cameron had appointed Jeremy Hunt Health Secretary: before Hunt was appointed, he had written, “Our ambition [is] in effect denationalising health care in Britain” and that the NHS was ‘a 60-year-old mistake’ and ‘a fundamentally broken machine’.

The facts refute Hunt’s claims. In 2014 the Commonwealth Fund ranked the NHS the best of eleven health services, better than those of the USA, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

But governments still underfunded our NHS. We had fewer hospital beds per 1,000 people: 2.8, as against Germany’s 8.3, France’s 6.3, Italy’s 3.4 and Spain’s 3. We also had fewer doctors per 1,000 people: 2.8, as against Germany’s 4, Italy’s 3.9, Spain’s 3.8, France’s 3.3 and Australia’s 3.3.

d’Ancona notes that the Conservatives and the LibDems face a huge dilemma: if there is no recovery, their coalition has failed; if they claim that there is a recovery, then their coalition is not needed.
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3.0 out of 5 starsGreat on the Conservatives and on day-to-day events; weaker on the Lib Dems and on wider perspective
By Mark Pack TOP 1000 REVIEWER on 25 Aug. 2014
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
The new paperback edition of In It Together: The Inside Story of the Coalition Government by Matthew D'Ancona is not much changed from the previous hardback edition, save that its documenting of a government which is still in office has been brought up to date with some extra chapters. In the process it has, alas, lost the Peter Brookes cartoon cover done for the hardback edition.

How much you will enjoy the book depends very much on how much you want to read about the Liberal Democrats or to read political analysis.

This book is, despite the subtitle, very much an account of the Conservatives in power. The Liberal Democrats do get mentioned now and again but when equal marriage get discussed without mentioning Lynne Featherstone or the pension triple lock without mentioning Steve Webb you get the idea.

In It Together is a book primarily about the Conservatives and the references to the Liberal Democrats, taking as true pretty much every caricature that 'well placed sources close to the leader' like to wheel out when dissing their own party, suggest a range of Lib Dem sources that might be well placed in Westminster but are also small in number and homogenous in outlook.

As instant narrative history of the Conservatives, however, this book is brilliantly done. The Conservative sources look to be both numerous and well-placed, with controversies involving senior figures often having conflicting versions of events from the different sides set out.

The words flow easily as events move on a pace, with a skillfully done thematic structure. Despite the jumping back and forth in time that a thematic discussion requires, the overall chronology of events and changing nature of the coalition comes through clearly.Read more ›
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2.0 out of 5 starsI Love George
By tune352 on 10 Oct. 2013
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This book is a great disappointment. I purchased it on the day of publication believing it would be the first really authoritative book on the coalition. I knew that Matthew D'Ancona was on the right of the Conservative Party but on the basis of his Telegraph columns I had expected a degree of objectivity. Alas Mr D'Ancona has elected to display his uncritical admiration of the Cameroons in general and his absolute adulation of George Osborne in particular.
There are no new revelations except that Osborne thinks that Ian Duncan Smith is thick. Not exactly a surprise to anyone who has seen IDS interviewed. We get lengthy descriptions of the social life of the Notting Hill set and the Chipping Norton set. Above all, we are constantly reminded about how nice they all are and how Michael Gove is the most polite person in politics. You could almost believe that the author would love to be a member of both sets. Or maybe he already is.
If you are looking for informed analysis of the coalition, this book is not for you. If you are an uncritical, devoted and hero worshipping fan of George Osborne, this is the one for you.
I'll put this book down to experience and wait for the first really serious and objective analysis of the coalition to come along.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsWell written, thoroughly researched & a good read

I'm amazed at the number of reviewers here who think this book could have been better written, or that it's partial in some way. Read more

Published 3 months ago by A. D. Lee
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Happy with product

Published 3 months ago by irene baldwin
4.0 out of 5 starsRecommended.

This is a very readable account of the first few years of the coalition. It seems well-informed and deals with all the aspects which interest me (and, I would guess, most readers. Read more

Published 6 months ago by Mr. Bernard A. O'sullivan
5.0 out of 5 starsItem exactly as described

Item exactly as described

Published 11 months ago by Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 starsGood read and very interesting

Good read and very interesting. Wish the media would all read it and stop laying into the Lib Dems on a regular basis.

Published 22 months ago by Sandwich booklover
1.0 out of 5 starsMeh..

Found myself getting increasingly annoyed the more I read of this. D'Ancona's Tory-bias is clear to see and his fawning for Osborne borders on nauseating. Read more

Published on 19 Aug. 2014 by MR CRAIG W A CHESNUTT
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

a good book

Published on 15 Aug. 2014 by brian rowley
4.0 out of 5 starsGood insights

Still reading it!

Published on 5 Aug. 2014 by jacklass
5.0 out of 5 starsBob does it again.

More exploits of a cat that has touched every cat lover and some that are not.I waited a long time for this book having ordered it last September but it arrived as promised on... Read more

Published on 29 Mar. 2014 by Ian
5.0 out of 5 starsHe tells it like it is

I have always rated Matthew d"Acona very highly as a political journalist, and look forward each Sunday to his incisive analysis and comment of the current politics of the... Read more

Published on 8 Mar. 2014 by . John B

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