Gabriel Pogrund

Not gripping reading, but not bad. The conclusion seems reasonable: "The [Corbynite] Project never did win power but it did precipitate lasting political change. The Conservative Party disavowed austerity and elected a born-again statist of its own in Boris Johnson. Labour's own centre of gravity has been dragged conclusively and irrevocably to the left."

I did manage to finish it. It's somewhat more interesting for having the inside story, from insiders, on how things happened.
For example after the a former KGB spy turned MI6 informant and his daughter were found poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury in 2018, Theresa May the Prime Minister announced the expulsion of twenty-three Russian diplomats from Britain in retaliation. Jeremy Corbyn criticised the government for cuts to the diplomatic service, and asked if samples had been sent to Russia for testing. Seamus Milne, his communications chief, briefed the press further and compared it to the false Weapons of Mass Destruction story in the lead-up to the Iraq War. The reaction in John McDonnell's office (the Shadow Chancellor) :
"James Mills, the Shadow Chancellor's spin Doctor, was so furious that he rose from his chair and kicked a bin across the room. Colleagues eyed him uneasily. 'That's fucking going to cost us the election!' Mills shouted. 'That's fucking stupid. Who the fuck does stuff like that.?'

It's also interesting to hear about what was going on with the anti-Semitism scandals. His aides would apparently try to get Corbyn to compromise more with the Jewish Board of Deputies, but as one of his aides is quoted as saying,
"Often, we would get a sense... he was engaging with the issue better and then he'd go back and talk to people, mainly old Jewish Trotskyists in his constituency or elsewhere, who'd tell him," There's no problem. This is all capitulation to Zionism. "(p. 109)

The book's also interesting on Brexit. One Euroskeptic Labour Shadow Cabinet member is quoted as saying,
"We want the same rights in the labour market as we've got already? What the fuck does that mean? People voted against Europe because they think work is shit. LOTO [the Leader of the Opposition's Office] didn't have the capacity to understand what was happening in held-back areas. "(p. 69)

There's a nice vignette featuring the old school trade union guy Len McCluskey, at the otherwise damp squib that was the Labour Live event (renamed "JezFest" by the press):
"Acts dealt the bum hand of playing early, like the original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock and Levi Roots, the inventor of Reggae Reggae Sauce, played to crowds that were only two deep. For long stretches of the afternoon it was Unite's ice-cream van, whose chimes played 'The Red Flag' and whose Mr Whippy machine was manned by McCluskey himself, which drew the biggest crowd." (p. 93)… (más)