I really enjoyed this book, although that's not to say it's perfect (the ending in particular was rather anti-climactic). What it does do is pose a topical hypothetical – what if a genuinely progressive politician were to ever become the British prime minister? – and expose in exquisite detail all the forces that would work hard to wreck them.

There are a ton of naïve people out there who believe that an elected government has the authority to do more-or-less whatever they want, and it's a sheer coincidence that all major political parties end up with identical policies on 99.9% of issues (like gleeful participation in American wars, the prioritisation of corporate profits well ahead of wages or pensions…). This book shows well what would happen if a government really tried to cast off all that shit and instead implement common-sense social democratic policies. In venues like the exclusive Athenaeum club and luxurious country estates, the upper-class men who run the secret service, the civil service, the newspapers, the television news bureaux and who represent US diplomatic interests all conspire to ruin the new government before they can have literally any of their privileges taken away.

In Australia, of course, we had a similar thing happen to a leader who was not even nearly as progressive as the central figure of this book: Gough Whitlam was no progressive himself, but he came to power at a moment when the working class was powerful, militant and prepared to punish any Labor leader who did not try to fulfil the aspirations of the membership. During his time as prime minister a number of important reforms passed, but conservatives worked hard to wreck him and ultimately succeeded in the 1975 crisis. An important factor in the success of that effort was that the Americans extracted agreement from “a leading trade union figure” that there would be no industrial action to force Whitlam's reinstatement after removal – and thus, when unionised workers began walking out on impromptu general strikes in 1975, ACTU boss Bob Hawke – who later became the Labor PM who brought neoliberalism to Australia, prompting a mass exodus of the party's membership which leaves the party a hollowed-out husk today – insisted that they all go back to work.

A Very British Coup has its own class traitor union boss – Reg Smith, representing the power workers, who leads a massive industrial action causing rolling blackouts as he insists on a 50% pay rise. Newspapers and TV stations which have never supported an industrial action in their entire histories fall over themselves to support this one, just so they can wedge the government and put them in an impossible position which they hope will lead to their demise.

There are a number of other crises in this book – foreign currency traders working to make the pound crash, conflict with the US as the new government insists on nuclear disarmament and a withdrawal of the US military from its territory, and a scandal over a poorly-built nuclear power plant causing a narrowly-averted disaster.

One thing that is dissatisfying about this book is that it never really feels like Perkins’ government are defeated. Instead, it feels like they grow tired and give up. There is a part where one of the government's best ministers is “forced” to resign because he's been exposed as having a mistress, even though two days earlier it was agreed that he wouldn't have to resign and nothing had really changed since then. Similarly, the scandal that finally finishes the government off doesn't really feel any bigger or more impossible to resolve than previous scandals. It just feels like they've grown tired of fighting, which is not very satisfying narratively.

The novel also doesn't really talk about who's supporting Perkins’ government, aside from a handful of individuals. It doesn't talk about the party membership, or the trade unions that aren't arcing up like Reg Smith's power workers. It doesn't talk about how you could work against the dishonesty of the mainstream newspapers and TV channels – how even in the 80s you could create alternative newspapers for example (except for one character criticising the far-left's alternatives as “high on paranoia, low on facts” or something like it – which is like, at least they've made more than zero effort to put their analysis out there, you know?). Revolutions have succeeded in far more hostile environments, and this book doesn't really explain why this government has opted not to take any inspiration from their strategies.

Then again, another disappointing aspect of this book is that we never really see the government introducing any progressive policies. The early section of the book talks about some of their proposals, but they don't make any headway with any of them, even the ones that would be a lot easier than “force the US military to extricate themselves from our country”. Again, we don't even see them really try.

The book is fairly short, and while in some ways that's a good thing, I do think it would have been enriched by being a bit longer. It would have been nice to see this government achieve some successes, and have the opposition's victory come as a result of a long war of attrition as opposed to the government never successfully doing much and then giving up. Or even if they could have shown us how the timidity of social democracy seals its demise; something to suggest to the reader that progressive change is not just so impossible that there's no point even trying. What can left-wingers do that might actually work?

I feel like this review is more of a messy jumble of thoughts than a review, but long story short I did find this a very interesting book. It also seems like a rare gift to be able to describe currency fluctuations and other economic happenings in such a way that they're actually interesting, so well done there. If the topic sounds interesting to you, I would definitely recommend the read. ( )

My personal biases think it accurate, but it was entertaining nevertheless to read a former Labour politician's view of Thatchers 80 told as an alternative history in Chapter 3. Cheap, trashy conspiracy theory which could be read backwards by the Brexiteers today.

I read this as it rang a bell with Jeremy Corbyn. The story goes that a radical British PRime Minister is elected and the Establishment organises a coup. His politics are just like Corbyn's the Leader of the Labour Party elected by members in 2015 although the fictional PM is brighter and nicer. . It is. A light-hearted and sometimes cliched read. The upper classes are unprincipled idiots. The newly elected Party members honest and true, caught up in the machinations of a conspiracy against them. My difficulty is the author lost all credibility when he talked about Oman. Now I know I live in Oman so It is not unreasonable that I know more about the country and him. But The problem was he was so off target that it made me question the bits that I found more convincing. He talks about 'bopping the wops'. There has never been a war there.. There was a bloodless coup Iin 1973. He calls it 'sticking up for democracy' or counter argument 'about oil'. Oman had no oil until 1984 and even then not much, and the government is not democratic. It is a monarchy. But a very benevolent, wise monarch who created a wonderful infrastructure in what is agreed to be the most beautiful country in the Middle East rather than 'fly-ridden'. Now the mistakes are so glaring and the other parts so stereo-typical that he lost his credibility in what was before then quite a convincing look at the consequences of a government the USA did not approve of. ( )

I bought this book after a politicians reference to it after the recent events in the Labour Party election (2015) Similarities to some of the issues in this book relate alarmingly with Corbyn's philosophy.

Withdrawal, from NATO, removal of American bases, banning nuclear weapons, abolishment of the monarchy and other issues, all have an electrifying resonance. I read this book while on a short break in France and finished it the day England were knocked out of the Rugby World Cup. It was all very gloomy that day. The book however rattles along at quite a brisk pace. Chris Mullins is an ex Labour MP and he draws heavily on his insider knowledge of the workings in the corridors of power.

Although set in a Cold War stage, slightly in the future from when it was written (1982) the book is dated. Much has moved on since and references to the Middle East really do not seem so credible - even for then. But much else was informative in reference to US bases and military infrastructure in the UK - and the prospect of them (the Americans) refusing to leave and how they would resist expulsion, has disturbing undertones.

A good light hearted read though, overall. ( )

I found this a very enjoyable and engaging novel. I was also intrigued to see how prophetic it was in many ways. It was written in 1982, some three years into Mrs Thatcher’s first term in office, and is set in the year or so following a general election in 1989 at which the Labour party secured an unexpected landslide victory.

As the novel opens we are given the reactions of various Establishment stalwarts, including press barons, bankers, industrialists and several Civil Service mandarins, all of whom are appalled at the prospect of a genuinely socialist government assuming power. While they seethe with rage and fear we learn something of Perkins’s background.

As a young man Harry Perkins had followed his father into employment in a Sheffield steel mill. Once there he became involved in the trade union movement and quickly rose through the local ranks. Spotted as a potential high flier he was awarded a union scholarship to Ruskin College in Oxford, and continued his rapid progress through the part machinery until he was selected as an MP for his home town. Following a spell as an energetic and diligent back bencher he enters what is clearly the Wilson/Callaghan Government of 1974 to 1979 (though neither of those two leaders is specifically named), eventually rising to Cabinet level with responsibility for maintaining the national grid. In this capacity, despite obstructions posed by officials in his own department, he awards a contract for a nuclear power station to British Industrial Fuels, and they duly build an installation by.

When the Conservatives return to power under Mrs Thatcher following ntheir own landslide victory in 1979 Perkins surprises everyone (perhaps including himself) by eventually becoming leader of the Labour Party. An election is called in 1989.

Perkins certainly has a radical suite of policies and is eager to commence the withdrawal of the UK from NATO and the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal. He also threatens to dissolve the prevailing newspaper monopolies. As we have already read, the Establishment is appalled, and starts to fight back using its own range of weapons. Sir George Fison owns many of the most popular press titles and uses his papers to mount a concerted effort to undermine the new administration. Meanwhile the military Chiefs of Staff mobilise their own machinery, undertaking almost treasonous activities with Western Allies to circumvent the Government’s planned reductions. The various Whitehall Permanent Secretaries work together to confound the administrative process wherever possible. These mandarins are steely, ruthless characters – very far from the popular perception of Sir Humphrey, but with all of his determination to have their own way.

The author, Chris Mullin, would subsequently become a Labour MP and would even serve in Government himself, though at the time that he wrote this novel he was an investigative journalist fighting high profile alleged miscarriages of justice. However, his understanding of the Whitehall machinery is very clear, and he paints a very plausible picture of the relationship between Ministers and senior officials. The novel is always entirely credible, and often very humorous.

The novel is also rather alarming as it displays the relative ease with which the combined forces of the banks, the press and senior officialdom can confound the aims of government, regardless of the size of the electoral mandate. One thinks of the persistent rumours, fuelled by memoirs from the likes of Peter Wright, of concerted campaigns by the intelligence community to undermine the Wilson government in the 1970s. ( )