The Powers Behind the Prime Minister: The Hidden Influence of Number Ten - Hardcover

Kavanagh, Dennis; Seldon, Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002570866 ISBN 13: 9780002570862

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1999

Synopsis

Number Ten Downing Street is the most powerful office in British politics. It is also the most mysterious and least understood. Based on interviews with those who work or have worked for PMs since Heath, this book reveals the truth about our recent Prime Ministers and their working practices.

In this exclusive and important new book, Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon reveal for the first time, the truth about Number 10 Downing Street and how successive Prime Ministers have used the house to consolidate their power.

Their ambition is to write a book which is to Number 10 Downing Street what Peter Hennessy’s study was to Whitehall. It will be a close examination of the centre of a British Prime Minister’s power – how successive PMs have wielded power within its walls.

The authors have unprecedented access to contacts within 10 Downing Street who have agreed to speak to them exclusively and for the first time – civil servants, political advisors, secretaries and politicians. They have also talked to every Prime Minister still living. The book will, as a result, contain much controversial material that has never before been disclosed. For example, the chapter on Harold Wilson reveals how bizarre his behaviour became during the course of his second term. The revelations go far farther than either of Wilson’s biographers, Philip Ziegler or Ben Pimlott, to reveal that he was an appalling host, ignored foreign dignatories and important guests in order to gossip with cronies, and discloses his affair with another Downing Street employee other than Marcia Williams.

The book also looks closely at the workings of power within Number 10 and stresses the importance of geography inside the house for access to the Prime Minister, and to information and influence.

Power and the Prime Minister will be one of the most important political books of the season and a publishing sensation. It sheds sensational new light on many of our PMs and will be serialised in a national newspaper.

About this title

Review:

‘The best account of hte Blair inner circle.’
Peter Riddell, The Times, Books of the Year

‘An invaluable narrative history, very accurately charted, of a surprisingly under-researched institution, 10 Downing Street itself and the small group of people around successive Prime Ministers who have kept the show on the road.’
David Willetts, TLS

‘Office politics writ huge, The Powers Behind hte Prime Minister rattles along like some great pageant on the theme of Yes, Minister;’
Sue Cameron, Sunday Telegraph

‘A testament to our constitutional informality... impressive and vigorous.’
Sarah Hogg, Financial Times

From the Back Cover:

In this exclusive and important new book, Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon reveal for the first time, the truth about Number 10 Downing Street and how successive Prime Ministers have used the house to consolidate their power.

Their ambition is to write a book which is to Number 10 Downing Street what Peter Hennessy’s study was to Whitehall. It will be a close examination of the centre of a British Prime Minister’s power – how successive PMs have wielded power within its walls.

The authors have unprecedented access to contacts within 10 Downing Street who have agreed to speak to them exclusively and for the first time – civil servants, political advisors, secretaries and politicians. They have also talked to every Prime Minister still living. The book will, as a result, contain much controversial material that has never before been disclosed. For example, the chapter on Harold Wilson reveals how bizarre his behaviour became during the course of his second term. The revelations go far farther than either of Wilson’s biographers, Philip Ziegler or Ben Pimlott, to reveal that he was an appalling host, ignored foreign dignatories and important guests in order to gossip with cronies, and discloses his affair with another Downing Street employee other than Marcia Williams.

The book also looks closely at the workings of power within Number 10 and stresses the importance of geography inside the house for access to the Prime Minister, and to information and influence.

'Power and the Prime Minister' will be one of the most important political books of the season and a publishing sensation. It sheds sensational new light on many of our PMs and will be serialised in a national newspaper.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0002570866
• ISBN 13: 9780002570862
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352