Iain Dale, the journalist, publisher and LBC phone-in host, has edited a remarkable collection of essays called British By-Elections: The 88 By-election Campaigns That Shaped Our Politics (Biteback, £30). British by-elections, he explains in his preface, “often seem to take on a far greater political significance than, in retrospect, they really have. “At the time, they can appear to break the mould of British politics, signify the seemingly terminal decline of a particular political party or signal the end of a premiership. Some by-elections take on iconic status and are remembered several decades after they take place. Others quickly disappear into the depths of our memories, rarely to be thought about ever again.” The collection includes essays by historians, political journalists and activists of different political hues. Contributors include Peter Kellner, Sir Vernon Bogdanor, Andrew Marr, Lord Lexden, Sir Peter Riddell, Simon Heffer, David Laws, Michael Crick, Sir John Curtice, Tim Shipman, Joe Pike and Sunder Katwala. “There’s rarely a dull by-election,” says Dale. “Whether they occur because of the death of the sitting Member of Parliament, the corruption of an MP or simply the fact that the MP has had enough, there’s always a human tale to tell.” There is also an intriguing statistics section, which includes the largest swings, the lowest winning shares of the vote, the smallest majorities, and those by-elections occasioned by assassination, suicide and accidental death. Newly appointed New Statesman editor Tom McTague’s first book Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945–2016 (Pan Macmillan, £25) tells the story of Britain’s complex and fractious relationship with Europe, or more precisely the European Union. Covering first the attitude of Attlee and Churchill towards our involvement with the Continent, McTague examines our early efforts to join the Common Market under Macmillan and the adamant resistance of President De Gaulle of France. It is not only a history of Britain’s engagement with the European idea, but also explores our resistance to it set against the background of our declining empire. Featuring prominent politicians such as Jean Monnet, the architect of the EU; champions of the EU such as Edward Heath and Roy Jenkins; Margaret Thatcher, who blew hot and cold on the subject; and Enoch Powell, who was a stalwart opponent of Britain’s membership (along with Tony Benn and Michael Foot) on sovereignty grounds, Between the Waves does not forget the role of non-politicians who wielded influence, such as the billionaire backer of Ukip, Jimmy Goldsmith, and Patrick Robertson, the student founder of the Bruges Group, as well as less well-known though effective political strategists. McTague covered the Brexit years himself for online political news and analysis platform Politico.Between the Waves comes garlanded with praise from eminent social historian David Kynaston. “Compelling, hugely well-informed,” he says, “it will stand for many years as the authoritative political history.” Tony Blair by Steve Richards is part of “The Prime Ministers Series”. Richards was a columnist for The Independent and Independent on Sunday as well as a regular TV pundit throughout the Blair premiership; his son is now a Labour MP and his daughter is a special adviser to Yvette Cooper and married to a Labour MP. The family is New Labour gentry. Richards’ assessment of Blair perceives him as more a British traditionalist than a moderniser, and his involvement in the Iraq War as more an expedient foreign policy of pro-US alignment than an exercise in messianic nation-building. Broadly sympathetic, the book highlights Blair’s achievements, including devolution, the peace accord in Northern Ireland, the introduction of civil partnerships and a renewed NHS. It nonetheless recognises his flaws and seeks to give a rounded view of his record in office. The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy (OR Books, £19.99) by author Paul Holden is the first critical analysis of Keir Starmer’s capture of the Labour Party and of Starmerism. Holden, an investigative journalist, the director of investigations at Shadow World Investigations, and a Network Fellow at the Safra Centre for Ethics at Harvard University, has unearthed what he sees as the behind-the-scenes project of bringing Starmer to power and burying Corbynism through the sinister group Labour Together, four of whose original MP supporters now sit in the Cabinet. The villain of the book is undoubtedly Morgan McSweeney, now Starmer’s chief of staff, who ensured that only parliamentary candidates supportive of Starmer were selected after 2019, although his influence and that of Labour Together goes back to 2015. Holden argues that Starmer lied in his bid for the party leadership and that he and his associates deliberately hid sources of political funding (from hedge fund Quadrature and hedge-funder Martin T...