Lewes Speakers Festival: Denis MacShane

Tom Baldwin in conversation with Denis MacShane What to expect from Keir Starmer and his government.

A conversation between two authors: one who has spent his career writing and communicating about politics and the other who was former Europe Minister under Blair.

They base their discussion on two books.

The first is by Tom Baldwin. It is called: ‘Keir Starmer: The Biography’. This authoritative – but not authorised – biography by Tom Baldwin provides answers by drawing deeply on many hours of interviews with the Labour leader himself, as well as unprecedented access to members of his family, his oldest friends and closest colleagues.  Together, they tell an unexpectedly intimate story filled with feelings of grief and love that has driven him on more than any rigid ideology or loyalty to a particular faction.  It tracks Starmer’s emergence from a troubled small-town background and rebellious youth, through a storied legal career as a human rights barrister and the country’s chief prosecutor, to becoming an MP relatively late in life. Baldwin provides a vivid and compelling account of how this untypical politician then rose to be leader of his party in succession to Jeremy Corbyn, then transformed it with a ruthless rapidity that has enraged opponents from the left just as much as it has bewildered those on the right.

The Second is by Denis MacShane and is called: ‘Labour Takes Power: The Denis MacShane Diaries 1997–2001’. With the strong possibility of Labour forming our next government, it is fascinating to consider the last time the party stood on the verge of power, back in 1997. At that time, MacShane had a ringside seat that he would occupy for the next decade or so, living through Cool Britannia, the Good Friday Agreement, Peter Mandelson’s multiple resignations, Princess Diana’s death and Tony Blair’s seeming invincibility. New Labour may be remembered as an unstoppable force, but MacShane’s diaries reveal that while, outwardly, all seemed to be going well, the personal rivalries, slights and petty jealousies between the party’s big beasts meant that it was never far from disaster. MacShane was a regular in Downing Street from the moment of Labour’s election victory, and his candid, intimate diaries show figures such as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, Peter Mandelson, Clare Short and Alastair Campbell in a light in which they’ve never been seen before, detailing the personalities as much as the politics of Labour’s most successful stint in government.

Tom Baldwin has spent most of his life writing about or working in politics from Westminster to Washington. He began his career on local newspapers before having senior roles for the Sunday Telegraph and The Times. He was the Labour Party’s communications director under Ed Miliband and later helped run a mass campaign for a second referendum on Europe.

Denis MacShane is a former Labour MP who served in Tony Blair’s government as Europe Minister from 2002 to 2005. During his time in Parliament, he was a member of the Privy Council and chaired the Commons inquiry into antisemitism. He was first elected as MP for Rotherham in 1994 and served until his resignation in 2012. He has written several books on European politics and in 2015 published Brexit: How Britain Will Leave Europe, which predicted that Brexit would indeed occur.