WINNING HERE:

My Campaigning Life: Memoirs Volume 1

 

BY CHRIS RENNARD/@LordRennard

 

 
 

Interested in the politics of the 80s, 90s and ‘noughties’ and how elections are really won and lost?

There is no better account of the story of the survival of the Liberal Party after the Jeremy Thorpe scandal, the rise and fall of the Alliance with the SDP and the rise of the Liberal Democrats under Paddy Ashdown (and his relationship with Tony Blair) and Charles Kennedy (and his problems with alcohol) as the party increased its number of MPs from 19 to 63 and prepared to enter Government at Westminster.

 

With Charles Kennedy outside Cowley Street after the Lib Dems polled 27%of the vote in the May 2004 local elections. 

 

Winning Here’ is heartfelt and very personal political memoir about surviving adverse circumstances in childhood, taking on enormous political challenges and making huge differences to the fortunes of a political party and the way in which elections are fought.

Chris Rennard speaking in the House of Lords, 2017.

There will never be a better book demonstrating campaigning and electioneering skills first hand and showing how enormous swings were often achieved from the two biggest parties to what was then the third party.

REVIEWS: 

Chris Rennard is ‘one of the most feared and respected of political tacticians. His is a graphic description of life in the engine room of politics and a timely reminder that the triumph of ideals must be organised’.

-- Lord McNally, former Deputy Leader of the House of Lords 

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 ‘To understand the success of the Liberal Democrats in the period 1988-2006 you absolutely have to read this book’.

-- Iain Dale, broadcaster and former Conservative candidate

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 ‘Rennard’s strategy at GE1997 delivered 46 LD seats, the largest third party contingent since 1929 a number which had increased to 62 at GE2005. By then Charles Kennedy had become the Liberal Democrat leader and Rennard writes sensitively about the alcoholism which was to cost Kennedy the leadership. Ever practical, however he saw the Dunfermline by-election of 2006 as a means to give the party a boost after Kennedy’s downfall… this book is generous to colleagues and friends, and suggests he is loyal and considerate in his personal dealings’.

-- politicalbetting.com

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