The Critic Magazine

Why Labour has the best history books

SOMEONE I KNEW BACK IN THE DAY once told me that when he left home he joined all three political parties: Labour because they had the best drugs, the Tories because they had the best women, and the Lib Dems for a night off. His point being, I guess, that the movements still had their differences, even in the “I agree with Nick” period.

Painful as it is for a Tory historian to admit, obviously, Labour has the best history books — if not the best history, or necessarily any history at all. Part of the reason is that most historians are on the left anyway, so most histories of the right are written with such masticating

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