Jerry Hayes

Sunday

Jerry Hayes

Ed Miliband isn’t sad, he’s tragic

ED: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader by Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre is a much better book than it has been given credit for. The making of a really good biography requires research, insight and some good gossip. The trouble is that Ed Miliband has not done anything particularly interesting except to be Gordon Brown’s bitch and trample all over his older brother to become leader of the Labour Party. That is why I would recommend the reader skim through the first few chapters, which basically come to the conclusion that his friends thought he was dull and geeky.

Sunday

Jerry Hayes

The Zionist and the Zealot

If anyone wants to attempt an understanding of any conflict they should study history. And if anyone wishes to understand the roots of the problems in the Middle East, and in particular Israel and Palestine, they should read Geoffrey Lewis’s beautifully researched and scholarly Balfour & Weizmann: The Zionist, The Zealot and the Emergence of Israel. Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and midwife of the Balfour Declaration was the Zionist, while Chaim Weizmann, a distinguished chemist whose efforts help shorten World War II, was the Zealot and its father.

Sunday

Jerry Hayes

Archer’s gift

One of the most irritating things about the launch of a Jeffrey Archer book is the high pitched whine of indignation and scorn from that small, bitchy and endangered species, the literary community. Well, after God knows how many years and the sale of 350 million books, they have been remarkably reserved about his latest, Only Time Will Tell. In fact, the old rascal has had some favourable reviews from some unexpected sources, The Guardian and The Independent. And well deserved too. No doubt they will be punished by having to read every Booker prize winner’s offerings for the last 20 years. How cruel is that? This is a cracker of a read. And quite unputdownable. The whole thing about Jeffrey is that he has always had the knack of producing page-turners.

Sunday

Jerry Hayes

Whatever Next?

  Robin Ferrers has written a wonderful and entertaining book about his life. In many ways his is a life of love; of his family, his country and of life itself. If ever there is an example of someone who personifies the essence of being an English gentleman, in terms of decency, courtesy and a mischievous sense of humour, it is Robin. There was no surprise that, when the last Labour government foolishly decided to cull all but 92 of the hereditary peers, he topped the ballot to stay in the lifeboat. He was born to life of privilege: a stately home and a title that went back to William the Conqueror, but would say that the greatest privilege of all was having a close knit family who, unlike to many of his time, loved and appreciated him.

Sunday

Jerry Hayes

Transcending the Bounds of Awfulness

Jerry Hayes, the former Conservative MP for Harlow and criminal Barrister, returns to The Spectator Arts Blog with his take on Janet Street Porter’s book Don’t Let The B*****ds Get You Down, which has recently been reprinted in paperback. You really won’t want to put this book down. Because the moment the first page of this execrable excuse for a self-help manual is finished, you will feel compelled to hurl it from the nearest window and pray that it won’t land on consecrated ground. This is not just any old turkey. It is a Janet Street Porter primal scream of a self-boasting, oven-ready, 25-pounder. It is a book that quite simply transcends the bounds of awfulness and takes middle class whinging to Turner prize levels. So where do we start?

Sunday

Jerry Hayes

Compulsory political reading

What I find so depressing about this book is that so few politicians and journalists have bothered to read it. A couple of days ago I popped in to the Commons for dinner. As I still had Boles’s book in my pocket, every time I bumped into ministers and senior journalists I asked if they had read it. Not one had. This is as remarkable as it is worrying. There are too many people who moan that they don’t know what the Coalition stands for or how it ticks. For those who really want to know – for those, of all parties, who really care about this country and her peoples – this book should be compulsory reading. The glory of Which Way’s Up? is that there is something in it for everyone.

Sunday

Jerry Hayes

TV: Oh, Mandy

Mandelson: The Real PM? is not so much a fly on a wall as a bluebottle buzzing round a dunghill. Hannah Rothschild invites us to join her on the trail of the gastropodic slime, littered with the rotting corpses of political roadkill, that is Peter Mandelson’s life. It is as gripping as it is depressing. Whether the Beeb thought they were being ironic by calling this ‘Storyville’ we will never know. But it does just sound uncannily similar to the League of Gentlemen’s dark and twisted comedy, Psychoville. There may be no one-handed homicidal clown in Rothschild’s work, but Peter Mandelson, the real PM, is much scarier. Rothschild’s gift is in the edit.