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51 reviews for:
All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain's Political Class
Tim Shipman
4.3 AVERAGE
51 reviews for:
All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain's Political Class
Tim Shipman
4.3 AVERAGE
Unbelievable, how Tim Shipman could transform a 32-hours long book on politics into a fascinating story
Halloween has passed without us leaving the EU (thank goodness) and appropriately enough I finished Tim Shipman’s ‘All Out War’ today.
It’s a compelling and meticulous account of the Brexit Referendum that’s extremely readable despite the complexity of the events being relayed. It’s a fascinating book and achieved for me the author’s intended aim of giving readers on either side of the debate a better understanding and appreciation of the motives of the other side.
Perhaps unsurprisingly (given that the author is political editor of The Sunday Times) it does a much better job of explaining the Tory side of the story than it does the Labour one. The Conservative players are fully formed characters with motivations and personalities, whilst Labour is more or less portrayed as a big dysfunctional blob. Not sure if this is bias on the part of the author or just a result of Labour players being less willing to talk to him, but it cost the book a star for me.
Nevertheless, it’s a book I throughly recommend and I’ll be diving into the sequel very soon.
It’s a compelling and meticulous account of the Brexit Referendum that’s extremely readable despite the complexity of the events being relayed. It’s a fascinating book and achieved for me the author’s intended aim of giving readers on either side of the debate a better understanding and appreciation of the motives of the other side.
Perhaps unsurprisingly (given that the author is political editor of The Sunday Times) it does a much better job of explaining the Tory side of the story than it does the Labour one. The Conservative players are fully formed characters with motivations and personalities, whilst Labour is more or less portrayed as a big dysfunctional blob. Not sure if this is bias on the part of the author or just a result of Labour players being less willing to talk to him, but it cost the book a star for me.
Nevertheless, it’s a book I throughly recommend and I’ll be diving into the sequel very soon.
informative
fast-paced
Just gonna preface this - this is my view and opinions. I will not get into a political debate with anyone.
I don’t know how to sum up my feelings about this.
My rating is a 3 star.
I spent the entirety of the book not really understanding who everyone was and the roles they played (other than the top people in each camp) but that I link that more to my ignorance on how the government is structured as a whole (I have a very, very basic understanding) than to Shipman’s writing.
In terms of being informed about Brexit, it hasn’t changed my opinion. It has softened my anger towards the Leave campaign to some extent, in others I am just as angry, just as frustrated and just as disgusted as I was when this was all happening.
I still think the Remain campaign did a terrible job at campaigning. They should have done better.
They all lied. They all failed the British people.
In my opinion. Don’t come for me.
Ultimately this book did what it outlined in the introduction. It educated me on how the campaigns really went, how we really came to have the result we did and I have more of an understanding of both sides of the arguments and slightly less hostility to the people I oppose.
But I stand by my thoughts and opinions. I stand by my vote.
I’m interested to read his next book about Brexit… I think I’ll wait until all this bullshit is over first though.
I don’t know how to sum up my feelings about this.
My rating is a 3 star.
I spent the entirety of the book not really understanding who everyone was and the roles they played (other than the top people in each camp) but that I link that more to my ignorance on how the government is structured as a whole (I have a very, very basic understanding) than to Shipman’s writing.
In terms of being informed about Brexit, it hasn’t changed my opinion. It has softened my anger towards the Leave campaign to some extent, in others I am just as angry, just as frustrated and just as disgusted as I was when this was all happening.
I still think the Remain campaign did a terrible job at campaigning. They should have done better.
They all lied. They all failed the British people.
In my opinion. Don’t come for me.
Ultimately this book did what it outlined in the introduction. It educated me on how the campaigns really went, how we really came to have the result we did and I have more of an understanding of both sides of the arguments and slightly less hostility to the people I oppose.
But I stand by my thoughts and opinions. I stand by my vote.
I’m interested to read his next book about Brexit… I think I’ll wait until all this bullshit is over first though.
Excellent. I think I should stop reading a daily paper and read a massive book like this every few months instead.
All Out War is an utterly gripping, supremely well-researched account of the tumultuous Brexit campaign and it's immediate fallout in British Politics. It is the essence of 2016.
This, along with Project Fear, goes down as one of my favourite journalistic political books of all time. Its attempt to cover a recent British event I was proud to have been a part of from both sides makes it very fair and worthy of... some award or something.
Stellar stuff on the year of chaos that was 2016 and the Brexit referendum. The sources, particularly on the Tory side, are exceptional and allow for a forensic telling of the campaign from all angles: political, personal, policy, moral, press... feels like history being written in real time.
A long - possibly overly so - book looking at the Brexit campaigns. Interesting, and also depressing how many people were taking part in campaigns they didn't really care about. The appendix contains one argument from Boris about how bad Europe in, and one about how good Europe is. Sigh...