Why don't we like politicians? In "The Political Animal", Jeremy Paxman takes a look at why governments and politicians so often fail to live up to expectations. It can be an unforgiving business for MPs - caricatured as either power-hungry hypocrites or hopeless idealists - years of effort can lead only to defeat, disgrace or obscurity. What sort of person likes having his or her business or family affairs all over the news, or mistakes trumpeted and triumphs belittled? What drives people to go into it - and what do they get from it all? Jeremy Paxman sets out to explore this strange world - and on the way gives us an unsparing, but essentially sympathetic portrait of modern politicians.
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Book Description
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About the Author
Jeremy Paxman is a journalist, best known for his work presenting Newsnight and University Challenge. His books include Friends In High Places and The English. He lives in Oxfordshire.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Witty, biting and strangely affectionate,
This review is from: Political Animal (Paperback)
A delightful, sharp book full of wisdom and cynicism on British political life. Paxman gives proper criticism but healthy doses of understanding and respect to MPs both past and present, PMs to backbenchers.Upon first coming upon a Conservative MP at a speech as a school boy to seeing Tony Blair roll to a 2nd landslide, Paxo's musings are prescient and interesting. Unlike most British political commentary, he really delves into the minutia of life between Yea and Nea lobbies of the Commons and the vague absurdities, idignities and also triumphs of dealing with and campaigning in one's constituency. Through no fault of his own, a defiency in the book is that its outlook predates the Iraq invasion when Blair's popularity really began to drop and his moral authority dramatically suffered. The vantage point is not as dark and the-sky-is-falling as public outlook is on foreign policy, at this writing, at the close of the Blair Years. But perhaps Paxo would not be so influenced by such public perceptions. He draws great rememberances of politicians of a rhetorical past we've not seen, hardly remembered and rarely appreciated. Also, Paxman successfully resists political platitudes and a book that begins with questions pleasantly ends with probably more of them, not less. For those looking for some kind of literary version of his hard-hitting interviewing on Newsnight, they will be disappointed. Though I love that style, here is something far more illuminating and far more edifying.
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