Announcements

Biteback Publishing has acquired Landslide: The inside story of the 2024 election, a revelatory account of the dramatic vote that reset British politics, by journalists Tim Ross and Rachel Wearmouth.

On 22 May, Rishi Sunak stood outside 10 Downing Street and announced an election would be held on 4 July, taking the country – and his own party – by surprise. Standing unprotected in the pouring rain, the Prime Minister resembled a drowning rat, an image that would follow him for the next six weeks.

After the Conservatives stumbled from one setback to another – with bitter internal feuds boiling over, the PM leaving D-Day events early and the revelation that senior Tories placed bets on the election – Sunak led his party to its worst ever defeat. His rival, Sir Keir Starmer, steered Labour to a historic victory with ruthless discipline but won his landslide with fewer votes than his much-maligned predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.

In this pacy and colourful new book, seasoned political journalists Tim Ross and Rachel Wearmouth use new interviews and candid private accounts from key players to take the reader behind the scenes of one of the strangest but most consequential elections in recent history.

They explore the decision-making behind the Tories’ missteps and how Starmer hauled Labour back from defeat following the 2019 election but also examine the extraordinary surge in support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the revitalisation of the Liberal Democrats through Ed Davey’s stuntman antics, and the wipeout of the SNP. This inside story is unmissable for anyone seriously interested in politics and what the dramatic Labour landslide of 2024 means for the future of Britain.

Tim Ross is deputy head of news at Politico. He was previously executive editor for politics at the New Statesman and ran UK political coverage for Bloomberg and the Sunday Telegraph. He has written two bestselling books on British elections – explaining how David Cameron shocked pundits and pollsters by winning a majority in 2015 and how Theresa May shocked pundits and pollsters by throwing it away again two years later.

Rachel Wearmouth is a freelance journalist who has previously worked at HuffPost, the Daily Mirror and the New Statesman. She began her career covering politics outside of Westminster, at regional papers in the north of England and at Scotland’s Sunday Post.

Olivia Beattie, editorial director at Biteback, acquired world rights direct from the authors.

Beattie said: ‘Having worked with Tim on his two previous books, Why the Tories Won and Betting the House, I know there’s no one better placed to uncover the behind-the-scenes drama of an election seemingly built of unforced errors. With Rachel also bringing her exceptional analysis and access to the story, this promises to be both a gripping account of a landmark election and a thoughtful, nuanced exploration of the undercurrents shaping British politics.’

Ross and Wearmouth said: ‘This is a rare opportunity to tell the full inside story of a truly historic election. We’re delighted to be working with the country’s leading political publisher to bring this account to readers who want to understand the people and forces that triggered this seismic result, and what the vote says about the state of Britain in 2024.’

Biteback Publishing has acquired world rights for Theo Clarke’s Breaking the Taboo, which it will publish in May 2025.

In an emotional debate in the House of Commons in October last year, Theo Clarke broke down in tears as she described being rushed into emergency surgery after the birth of her daughter, terrified she was going to die.

She received a standing ovation and was amazed at the public response. Having shared her own story, she was inundated with accounts from other mothers of their own traumatic childbirth experiences. Quickly she realised that, although birth trauma is a huge issue, there is still a real taboo around speaking about it.

In the UK alone, it’s estimated that up to 30,000 women a year suffer bad experiences during the delivery of their babies, with one in twenty developing post-traumatic stress disorder as a result. Despite this, poor and substandard maternity and postnatal care is too often tolerated as normal.

As an MP, Clarke chaired the first UK inquiry into birth trauma, hearing harrowing evidence from more than 1,300 women, some of whose lives were ruined by their experiences. In Breaking the Taboo, she presents the stories and experiences of mothers and fathers from all different backgrounds that show the undiscussed realities of childbirth trauma and poor maternity care. This urgent book will start a conversation that is as essential as it is overdue.

Theo Clarke said:

“Birth trauma is one of the world’s biggest challenges in women’s health and I am delighted Biteback is publishing my book, as the important debate must continue about how to improve maternity care here in the UK and in other countries too.

The book will bring forward new testimony and expert opinion to look closely at what needs to be done to end the postcode lottery of care in childbirth and the horrifying experiences women can suffer in maternity units that leave them physically and mentally scarred, unable to work and feeling alone.

There is much to do and I hope my book will build on my campaign in Parliament, in the NHS and in government on this taboo subject. We are finally talking about it, but we still need radical policy change to improve how new mums are treated.

In the twenty-first century, women should not suffer a lack of compassion, substandard care, life-threatening and life-changing injuries simply to become mothers.”

 

James Stephens, publisher at Biteback, said:

“This remarkable book will be an essential addition to the discussion around how we regard and treat women and childbirth – a discussion Theo has already campaigned so hard to make happen.”

Breaking the Taboo will be published in May 2025, accompanied by a major publicity campaign.

 

Theo Clarke was the Member of Parliament for Stafford. She chaired the first parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma in British history and previously set up the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Birth Trauma in the House of Commons. Theo has served as parliamentary private secretary at the Departments for Education, Business and Trade and HM Treasury, in addition to being trade envoy for the Prime Minister. She won “Speech of the Year” at the Parliamentarian of the Year Awards in 2024.Theo has written for a number of publications including The Times, the Daily Telegraph and Country Life. This is her first book. 

 

For more information, please contact Suzanne Sangster on suzanne.sangster@bitebackpublishing.com

 

 

Interested in elevating your reading list for 2024? Explore the latest additions to Biteback’s catalogue for a selection of compelling reads.

 

Politics

Conflict, Cooperation and Coalition: 100 years of Lib–Lab Relations by David Laws

The Unusual Channels: Inside the mysterious world of political whips by Sebastian Whale

Political biography

Suella Braverman by Rosa Prince

Biography

Millicent Garrett Fawcett by Tessa Blackstone

Better Get Carman by Karen Phillipps

Political history

Winston’s Bandits: Churchill’s Controversial Companions in Adversity and Triumph by Adrian Phillips

The Art of Delivery: The Inside Story of How the Blair Government Transformed Britain’s Public Services by Michelle Clement

History

Hitler’s Crime Fighter by David Lee

Hair Apparent: A Voyage Around My Roots by Tina Shingler

Current affairs

The ‘F’ Word by Patsy Stevenson

Inheritocracy: How the inheritance economy is keeping families together and pulling society apart by Eliza Filby

We Are What We Read by Vybarr Cregan-Reid

Espionage and crime

The Intelligent Spy’s Handbook by Robin Renwick

Murder in Cairo: The Killing of David Holden by Peter Gillman and Emanuele Midolo

Sport

Go To War by Jon Spurling

Royal

Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants by Tom Quinn

 

Browse our new releases here.

Pick up a Biteback paperback today: check out our reasonably priced collection here.

Biteback Publishing has acquired the first book by former Prime Minister Liz Truss.

 

In Ten Years to Save the West, Truss – who as Prime Minister sought to champion an agenda of limited government and individual freedom – will argue that the rise of authoritarianism around the world and the adoption of fashionable ideas propagated by the global left give us barely a decade to preserve the economic and cultural freedom and institutions that the West holds so dear.

Liz Truss said: “After more than ten years as a government minister, I’ve seen up close the threats posed to global democracy. Across the free world, we face massive, unaccountable administrative states and complacent political and corporate establishments which are not only putting the brakes on economic growth, but also hampering our ability to stand up to authoritarian regimes like China and Russia.

“I want to share the lessons from my experience in government and those international meetings where I was often the only conservative in the room and demonstrate that we have stark choices to make if we wish to avoid a managed decline of the Western architecture that has presided over generations of relative peace and prosperity.”

Peppered with newsworthy anecdotes from her time in public life – such as her memorable last meeting with Queen Elizabeth II, her challenges to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping as Foreign Secretary, her encounters with the Trump administration as Trade Minister, and her dismay at the political class’s attempts to betray Brexit – this book will be a timely warning about the perils facing conservatism in the years ahead.

In it, Truss will warn that too many of her fellow conservatives have allowed themselves to be captured by the left-wing influences that set the agenda and frame the debate in so many institutions from the media to academia and the corporate world.

She will also call for a return to the alliances built by leaders such as Reagan, Thatcher and others in another era when Western values were under siege. Only if the West recommits to building both strong societies and strong economies, unhampered by big government and regulation, Truss argues, can we guarantee voters a free and meaningful choice in their destiny.

Ten Years to Save the West will be published in April 2024. It will be published in the US by Regnery.

For more information please contact suzanne.sangster@bitebackpublishing.com

Biteback will publish Lord Ashcroft’s next political biography, of Angela Rayner, Labour’s Deputy Leader, in 2024.

 

Read Lord Ashcroft’s announcement here:

“With the possibility that a Labour government could be in power by or before January 2025, the time has come to announce that my newest book project is a biography of Angela Rayner, Labour’s Deputy Leader.

Since becoming an MP in 2015, Ms Rayner has been hard to ignore. Sometimes controversial, always spirited, usually outspoken and unfailingly committed to the socialist causes she holds dear, she has quickly become one of the best known politicians on the national stage. Her impressive climb to the top of the Labour Party means that she is now on the brink of exerting enormous influence over British citizens.

As with all of my political biographies, this book will be independent, open-minded and even-handed, letting the facts speak for themselves. The research I’ve done already has convinced me that Ms Rayner is certainly one of the most interesting figures operating in Westminster today.

In recent months I have been working on a biography of a rising star in Conservative Party politics, Kemi Badenoch. That book, together with the Angela Rayner project, will be published ahead of the general election, which must be held no later than 24 January 2025. And next month, All to Play For, my fully revised and updated biography of Rishi Sunak, which was first released in 2020 as Going for Broke, will also be published.

Over the next 15 months or so, British politics promises to be fascinating. I look forward to doing my best to enlightening voters about what makes some of its principal players tick.”

 

Discover more of Lord Ashcroft’s publications here.