Iain Dale, MD of Biteback Publishing, has acquired world rights to Winning Here by former Chief Executive and Director of Campaigns & Elections for the Liberal Democrats, Lord Rennard.
Chris Rennard’s long relationship with the Liberals, and later the Liberal Democrats, began when a compassionate Liberal candidate helped his disabled mother receive her widowed mother allowance. By his twenties, Rennard was the most successful election campaigner his party has ever known.
He helped the Liberal Party win power in Liverpool in the 1970s and campaigned for Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins in famous by-elections which helped the Liberal SDP Alliance to compete for power before its acrimonious collapse in the late ‘80s. He was then responsible for a series of spectacular by-election victories that rescued his party’s fortunes and he oversaw a huge increase in the party’s number of MPs and elected representatives. Liberal leaders Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy, Menzies Campbell and Nick Clegg would all rely on him as the party grew to the peak of its success.
This volume of memoirs spans his first thirty years in politics (to 2006) and includes the highs and lows of his party during the leaderships of Paddy Ashdown (including his hopes for coalition with Tony Blair) and Charles Kennedy (including the latter’s enforced resignation after publicly revealing his problem with alcohol).
Iain Dale said: ‘There will never be a better insider account of a political party. Winning Here is a record that shows how election campaigns are really fought and won and how party leaders change and parties develop.’
Winning Here will be published in January 2018 and supported by a major publicity campaign.