Anthony Seldon

How and why has the office of British Prime Minister lasted an incredible 300 years? Who have been the best, and worst?

The History of the British Prime Minister

The Impossible Office?

Raymond (Author) Newell

The definitive account of Boris Johnson's turbulent time in office by one of Britain's leading political and social commentators.

The Inside Story

Johnson at 10

The first volume of Anthony Seldon's riveting and definitive life of Tony Blair was published to great acclaim in 2004. Now, as the Labour Party and the country get used to their new leader and a new Prime Minister, Seldon delivers the most complete, authoritative and compelling account yet of the Blair premiership. Picking up the story in dramatic fashion on 11 September 2001, Seldon then brings us right up to date as Blair hands over the reins to his arch-rival, Gordon Brown. Based on hundreds of original interviews with key insiders, many of whose views have hitherto been kept private, BLAIR UNBOUNDserves both as a fascinating 'volume two' of this masterclass in contemporary history and a highly revealing and compelling book in its own right.

Blair Unbound

Dennis Kavanagh

(This edition does not include illustrations.) ‘Kavanagh and Seldon’s view of 20th-century British politics from behind the doors of Number10 should be compulsory reading. “The Powers Behind the Prime Minister” rattles along like some great pageant on the theme of “Yes, Minister”.’ Sue Cameron, Sunday Telegraph

The Powers Behind the Prime Minister: The Hidden Influence of Number Ten (Text Only)

Theresa May has presided over the most dramatic and historic peacetime premiership for a century. May at 10 tells the compelling inside story of the most turbulent period in modern British politics for 100 years. Written by one of Britain's leading political and social commentators, May at 10 describes how Theresa May arrived in 10 Downing Street in 2016 with the clearest, yet toughest, agenda of any Prime Minister since the Second World War: delivering Brexit. What follows defies belief or historical precedent. This story has never been told. Including a comprehensive series of interviews with May's closest aides and allies, and with unparalleled access to the advisers who shaped her premiership, Downing Street's official historian Anthony Seldon decodes the enigma of the Prime Minister's tenure. Drawing on all his authorial experience, he unpacks what is the most intriguing government and Prime Minister of the modern era.

The Verdict

May at 10

Oladimeji Abidoye

Timothy Metcalf

This book, presented in considerably updated and extended second edition, is a call to educators everywhere to open their eyes to what is coming. If we do so, then the future will be shaped by us for the common interests of humanity – but if we don’t, then it will be imposed, and we will all lose.

Will Artificial Intelligence Enrich or Diminish Humanity?

The Fourth Education Revolution Reconsidered

Kevin Hickson

This book, written by a distinguished selection of academics and commentators, provides the most detailed comparison yet of old and new Labour in power. I

The Wilson and Callaghan Governments, 1974-79

New Labour, Old Labour

Daniel Collings

Peter Snowdon

A conclusion to Anthony Seldon's account of the Blair premiership, covering his tenure from 9/11 to his departure from Number 10.

When Tony Blair entered Downing Street on 2 May 1997 Britain seemed a different place. On that brilliant spring day the country suddenly appeared fresher, brighter -- a marked contrast to the greyness of the dog days of the Major government. That early optimism was in large part a reaction to the personality of Blair himself. The acceptable face of a Labour Party he had already modernised beyond recognition, his charisma and drive won two successive three-figure majorities. But with the triumphs have come allegations of arrogance, of hubris. Was this an inevitable consequence of supreme, almost presidential power, or were these traits always there? We know Blair is a religious man, but what really motivates him? Rejecting the constraints of formal biography, Anthony Seldon has produced a profile of the Prime Minister that rewrites the bibliography of Blair studies. career and the key advisers he has courted so ardently, it assesses the Blair psychology in all its forms, including his pathological fear of alienating middle-class voters and his unprecedented contempt for the media. Gripping and revelatory, it is a major book about the man who has shaped modern Britain.

Blair

There is no more important issue facing education, or humanity at large, than the fast approaching revolution in Artificial Intelligence or AI. This book is a call to educators everywhere to open their eyes to what is coming. If we do so, then the future will be shaped by us in the interests of humanity as a whole.

The Fourth Education Revolution

The book takes us inside the Foreign Secretary's London home, 1 Carlton Gardens, and his country retreats, Dorneywood and Chevening. We hear tales of the life of ambassadors abroad, where the glittering parties and glamorous living quarters of an ambassador to Paris contrast with the accommodation that might be on offer to an ambassador and his entourage in Berlin or Moscow, and we look at the fascinating clandestine methods by which the Foreign Office communicated with its far-flung empire and embassies abroad. The story of the building is also the story of the struggle between two great architects - George Gilbert Scott, the architect of the Foreign Office itself, and Matthew Digby Wyatt, the architect of the India Office section of the building. Their contrasting styles still define the building today, and are revealed in Kim Sayer's contemporary photographs of the lavish and ornate rooms of the Locarno Suite; the magnificent Grand Staircase with its extraordinary murals; the Foreign Secretary's Room and the beautiful India Office buildings. Along with a wealth of material from the Foreign Office archives, much previously unseen, they combine to make this book both a celebration of the building and its work today and a testament to a time when the Foreign Office was the nerve centre of the world's greatest power.

An Illustrated History of the Place and Its People

The Foreign Office

GORDON BROWN's three years in power were among the most turbulent in Downing Street's post-war history. Brown at 10 tells the compelling story of his hubris and downfall, and with it, the final demise of the New Labour project. Containing an extraordinary breadth of previously unpublished material, Brown at 10 is a frank, penetrating portrait of a remarkable era, written by one of Britain's leading political and social commentators. Using unrivalled access to many of those at the centre of Brown's government, and original material gleaned from hundreds of hours of interviews with many of its leading lights, Brown at 10 looks with greater depth and detail into the signal events and circumstances of Brown's premiership than any other account published since the May 2010 general election. It also relates, for the first time, the full extraordinary tale of the pivotal role played by Brown in persuading the world's leaders to address the global banking crisis head-on. The result is the definitive chronicle of Gordon Brown's troubled period in Number 10, from the unique perspective of those who worked most closely with him.

Brown at 10

David Walsh

Following on from Public Schools and the Great War, Sir Anthony Seldon and David Walsh now examine those same schools in the Second World War. Privileged conservative traditions of private schools were challenged in the inter-war years by the changing social and political landscape, including a greater role for the alumni of girls’ public schools. What was that public school spirit in 1939 and how did it and its products cope with, and contribute to, the requirements of a modern global conflict both physically and intellectually? The book answers these questions by, for example, examining the public schools’ role in the development and operations of the RAF in unconventional warfare and code-breaking. At home there was bombing, evacuation and the threat of invasion. Finally, the authors study how public schools shaped the way the war was interpreted culturally and how they responded to victory in 1945 and hopes of a new social order. This fascinating book draws widely on primary source material and personal accounts of inspiring courage and endurance.

Public Schools and the Second World War

John Major's rise to leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister was meteoric and surprising. When he became Chancellor in 1989 few voters knew his name and his replacement of Margaret Thatcher seemed even more bewildering. This book provides an overview of John Major's premiership.

The Major Effect

A historical analysis of the contribution of Great Britain’s public schools to the conduct of World War II. Following their ground-breaking book on Public Schools and the Great War, David Walsh and Anthony Seldon now examine how those same schools fared in the Second World War. They use eye-witness testimony to recount stories of resilience and improvisation in 1940 as the likelihood of invasion and the terrors of the Blitz threatened the very survival of public schools. They also assess the giant impact that public school alumni contributed to every aspect of the war effort. The authors examine how the “People’s War” brought social cohesion, with the opportunity to end public school exclusiveness to the fore, encouraged by Winston Churchill among others. That opportunity was ironically squandered by the otherwise radical Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government, prolonging the “public school problem” right through to the present day. The public schools shaped twentieth century history profoundly, never more so than in the conduct of both its world wars. The impact of the schools on both wars was very different, as were the legacies. Drawing widely on primary source material and personal accounts of inspiring courage and endurance, this book is full of profound historical reflection and is essential reading for all who want to understand the history of modern Britain.

Jonathan Meakin

Since its creation in the depths of the Great War in December 1916, the Cabinet Office has retained a uniquely central place in the ever-changing political landscape of the last century. While the revolving door of 10 Downing Street admits and ejects its inhabitants every few years, the Cabinet Office remains a constant, supporting and guiding successive Prime Ministers and their governments, regardless of their political leanings, all the while keeping the British state safe, stable and secure. It has been at the centre of everything – wars, intelligence briefings, spy scandals, disputed elections, political crises – and its eleven Cabinet Secretaries, ever at the right hand of their political masters, have borne witness to them all. The true ‘men of secrets’, these individuals are granted access to the meetings that determine the course of history, trusted with the most classified information the state possesses. Written with unparalleled access to documents and personnel by acclaimed political historian, commentator and biographer Anthony Seldon, this lavishly illustrated history is the definitive inside account of what has really gone on in the last 100 years of British politics.

The Birth of Modern Government

The Cabinet Office, 1916–2018

Following on from Public Schools and the Great War, Sir Anthony Seldon and David Walsh now examine those same schools in the Second World War. Privileged conservative traditions of private schools were challenged in the inter-war years by the changing social and political landscape, including a greater role for the alumni of girls' public schools. What was that public school spirit in 1939 and how did it and its products cope with, and contribute to, the requirements of a modern global conflict both physically and intellectually?The book answers these questions by, for example, examining the public schools' role in the development and operations of the RAF, in unconventional warfare and code-breaking. At home there was bombing, evacuation and the threat of invasion. Finally, the Authors study how public schools shaped the way the war was interpreted culturally and how they responded to victory in 1945 and hopes of a new social order.This fascinating book draws widely on primary source material and personal accounts of inspiring courage and endurance.

May At 10

As Britain's best-known headmaster, Sir Anthony famously introduced happiness, or well-being, lessons at his school, Wellington College. In 2011, he co-founded Action for Happiness, a body to raise awareness of the discovery of happiness and reduction of depression, whose influence is growing rapidly in Britain and across the world. In this book Anthony Seldon distinguishes between pleasure, happiness and joy, and offers an original 8-step approach on how to make our lives far more meaningful and rewarding. The pursuit of happiness can all too easily become a trap which seduces us into thinking there is no more to life than being happy. In fact, the author is highly critical of 'positive psychology' and other dominant schools of thought. In fact, we need to reach beyond this if we are to access the deepest levels of human experience open to us, and find our own unique path in life. The author offers a further 5 steps, which point the way to accessing these deeper levels of experience, which alone result in the joyful life which is our birthright. Paradoxically, as this book demonstrates, stepping off the happiness treadmill will ultimately make for a happier and more fulfilled life. It is time to go beyond happiness.

The trap of happiness and how to find deeper meaning and joy

Beyond Happiness

How Tory Governments Fall is a landmark study of the forces that shape – and ultimately destroy – political power. It assesses the factors that are common to the decline and fall of each Conservative administration in British history since the beginnings of the modern, party-based system.

Anthony Seldon

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