Scathing criticism

Christopher Silvester | Issue 7 | Comment, Culture & Travel, Magazine, Uncategorised

From the Archive

From self-lacerating memoir to by-election madness and a Labour Together takedown, The Mace’s literary editor Christopher Silvester rounds up the latest political books.

Peter Oborne was once a conservative political commentator, who wrote mainly for the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator, but over the years he has become an increasingly radical critic of both the Conservative Party and the British state (including Labour governments). The moment that turned him, if you like, was the Iraq War and the deception practiced by Tony Blair’s government over the death of scientific adviser David Kelly. “I went mentally into opposition to the British state,” he has said.

There followed several books that challenged conventional views, including The Rise of Political Lying (2005), The Triumph of the Political Class (2007), and The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism (2021). In his latest book, Complicit: Britain’s Role in the Destruction of Gaza, Oborne attacks the British establishment’s reaction and approach to the Gaza crisis.

Based on original reporting, he shows that Conservative and Labour leaderships “converged” in support of Israel’s punitive campaign in Gaza, thus creating a bipartisan “political cartel” that stifled dissenting voices, and that Britain’s media “colluded” in this enterprise.

Mass protests by peaceful demonstrators have been demonised and those taking part falsely represented as terrorists. As with previous books, his criticism is scathing, and he ultimately charges that the British …

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