Customer Reviews

Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter

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This book is hilarious. And so true. If you were an unhappy camper during the Thatcher years in the UK--or are filled with dread by the recent onset of unfettered Republican control in the US you should read this book. The author was a writer on the political satire show SPitting Image in the 1980s and boy does it show. Laugh out loud quality in many part and filled with so unspoken truths. Great stuff.

Essential therapy for anybody who supported the Labour Party through eighteen years the of Conservatives Ruling Britain. We feel that O'Farrell was right there with us as pre-election optimism dissolved into miserable failure again and again and again.

Over the years his radical edge is softened by age and cynicism. The vegetarian succumbs to the bacon sandwich. The dedicated capaigner pays the au pair to deliver his election leaflets. The words of the chant have changed - 'What do we want? A winter flowering clematis! When do we want it? Before we lay the patio!'

Is it similar changes which made the Labour Party electable again?

His description of the unforgettable election night of 1997 is the highlight. The defeat of Michael Portillo described as dramatically as the scoring of a winning goal in the Cup Final. Could we ever get?

But did things really get better?

Name a Conservative comedian.
Give up?
Sadly, as a Tory, I've found there are few that aren't either bigoted or aged, which is why most Conservatives have to go cap-in-hand to commentators such as John O'Farrell.

Although this book is from the perspective of a hardcore Labour activist (he was even went vegetarian for the cause), its humour and humanity make it an enjoyable read. Even when stating his most left-wing of left-wing opinions, O'Farrell still comes across as a decent, genuine guy and it's often easy to read some of it without the penny dropping for a few pages (e.g. about how Labour people are often nicer than Conservatives).

Even up until the very end, where he talks about Labour's monumental 1997 victory, you can fully empathise and laugh along with the author.

And although Labour, like the Tories, have faded from glory with the years of government, this book has lost none of its power. Though comedy ages like cream, somehow the jokes still seem fresh despite the aged subject matter.

So, I'm in the ironic position of recommending a Labour activist's book as a Conservative activist!
Maybe one day Boris Johnson or William Hague will write their humourous memoirs. Somehow, though, I think they will struggle to out-do the trajedy, comedy but, most of all, the joyous energy

This book is a misery memoir of the highest order. The story of an activist who, galvanised into socialism as a young man in the late 70s, the very same period when the ideology was lurching around in its death throes, decided to devote his life to the Labour Party. John O'Farrell was no ambitious Blairite politico though. He fought his battles at the low end of the totem pole - trudging miles of godforsaken streets delivering leaflets, attending tedious meetings in grubby halls where left wing worthies tied themselves in knots with their own political correctness. All this could descend into a self righteous polemic. But the crucial, vital saving grace is the book's humour.

O'Farrell tells of the looks he gained in working class pubs by lunk headed Sun readers when he tentatively voiced his opposition to the Falkland's war. His guilty admission after the Brighton bomb that he wishes Thatcher had actually kopped it. The wishful, naive optimism on the eve of every general election only to wake up with a head pounding hangover and the Tories in power -again! The brutal asceticism and self-abnegation that prevented him from enjoying pretty much anything.

Nowadays, O'Farrell has done a New Labour type maturation himself - he lives a comfortable life as a metropolitan Guardian columnist and broadcaster. New Establishment as it were. But he can still laugh at the grim old days. The Conservatives might have won all the elections in the 1980s - but Labour trounced them at the humour polls. Very funny.

What happened to all those people who thought smiling was right wing, and whose activism consisted of making others feel inadequate? They were just waiting for you to be slightly out of line about Nicaragua or a teeny bit frivolous about gender stereotypes. One slip and they'd give you their best sneer - in spades. Politeness was also right wing. Yes, things got better. This joyless crowd melted away, morphed into new people, or else herded into colleges of higher education and social work departments to waste public money on endless meetings. But I shall never forgive!