To buy or not to buy

After four unremarkable decades in politics, Jeremy Corbyn stands on the brink of power. Until his surprise election as leader of the Labour Party in 2015, this seemingly unelectable oddball had not been a major political player. Since then, Corbyn has survived coup attempts and accusations of incompetence that would have felled most politicians, including grave charges of anti-Semitism, bullying and not being the master of his brief. Despite these shortcomings, as the Conservatives rip themselves apart over Europe, he is likely soon to become Britain’s prime minister.

Yet this hero of the far left has done his best to conceal much of his past and personal life from public scrutiny. In this book, best-selling investigative biographer Tom Bower reveals hidden truths about Corbyn’s character, the causes and organisations he espouses, and Britain’s likely fate under the Marxist-Trotskyist society he has championed since the early 1970s.

Bower’s books on Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Robert Maxwell were easy to read, well researched and packed with interesting detail. Well worth reading, but they did not greatly modify my previous outline view of Blair, Brown or Maxwell.

For the most part the books added lots of detail and provided reminders of context and other actors in the personal dramas of those three unlovely characters. They also added highlights to the ingrained vanity and the depths of cynicism they exhibited, particularly in the case of Blair and Maxwell.

However Corbyn may never be Prime Minister and may not be an interesting character. Perhaps not interesting enough to plough through what may well turn out to be a somewhat depressing biography. How could it be otherwise? The man’s politics are those of a radical teenager who never grew up. We may learn Bower’s take on why he never grew up and if his pre-beard goofy appearance affected his politics or we may not.