This Land: The Struggle for the Left

by Owen Jones

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Book cover for This Land

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A GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR

'A whodunnit political page-turner' Melissa Benn, New Statesman

'The best political book I have read for a long while' Rod Liddle, The Spectator

From the No.1 bestselling author of The Establishment, an urgent analysis of where the Left - and Britain - goes next

We live in an age of upheaval. The global crisis of Covid-19 has laid bare the deep social and economic inequalities which were the toxic legacy of austerity. These revolutionary times are an opportunity for a radical rethink of Britain as we know it, as the politically impossible suddenly becomes imaginable.

And yet, the Left's last attempt to upend the established order and transform millions of lives came to a crashing halt on 12th December 2019, when Jeremy Corbyn led the Labour party to its worst electoral defeat since 1935. In This Land, Owen Jones provides an insider's honest and unflinching appraisal of a movement: how it promised to change everything, why it went so badly wrong, where this failure leaves its values and ideas, and where the Left goes next in the new world we find ourselves in.

He takes us on a compelling, page-turning journey through a tumultuous decade in British politics, gaining unprecedented access to key figures across the political spectrum. It is a tale of high hopes and hubris, dysfunction and disillusionment. There is, Jones urges, no future for any progressive project that does not face up to and learn from its errors. We have the opportunity to build a fairer country and a more equal world, but if our time is to come, then we must learn from our past.

'An absorbing, nuanced account of the making of electoral disaster' Gaby Hinsliff, Guardian

  • ISBN10 0241470943
  • ISBN13 9780241470947
  • Publish Date 24 September 2020
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 11 November 2020
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
  • Imprint Allen Lane