Politics: A Survivor's Guide

A WATERSTONES BEST POLITICS BOOK OF 2023 'Passionate, clever, and often very funny' Marina Hyde 'A wonderful meditation on populism, nationalism, politics and truth' Rory Stewart We live in an age of fury and confusion. A new crisis erupts before the last one has finished: financial crisis, Brexit, pandemic, war in Ukraine, inflation, strikes. Prime Ministers come and go but politics stays divided and toxic. It is tempting to switch off the news, tune out and hope things will get back to normal. Except, this is the new normal, and our democracy can only work if enough people stay engaged without getting enraged. But how? To answer that question, award-winning journalist Rafael Behr takes the reader on a personal journey from despair at the state of politics to hope that there is a better way of doing things, with insights drawn from three decades as a political commentator and foreign correspondent.

Rafael Behr is an award-winning political columnist for the Guardian and a regular commentator on TV and radio. He is a former political editor of the New Statesman, chief leader writer at the Observer. He began his journalism career as a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times. He has also written highly regarded long-form political essays for Prospect magazine. Rafael is a well-respected figure in Westminster, considered one of the most insightful and articulate commentators of his generation. He has a network of contacts across the party spectrum, developed over more than two decades. He is an engaging and lively public speaker with many years of experience chairing and appearing as a panelist at conferences and literary festivals. Since April 2020, Rafael has also hosted Politics on the Couch, a podcast with a loyal following that looks at the psychological processes and biases that operate beneath the surface of day to day politics.