Isabel Oakeshott
INSIDE OUT
The subject of a fierce newspaper bidding war, Inside Out was the ultimate insider expose: an unsparing account of the spectacular decline of the most effective political machine of modern times.
Ghostwritten by Isabel, it is Peter Watt’s account of the dying days of the Blair/Brown regime, offering a unique insight into the deeply flawed personalities that ran the country at the time. As general secretary of the Labour Party, Watt was at the heart of government during one of the most tumultuous periods in recent political history.
He oversaw the transition of the premiership from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown and was intimately involved in two of the biggest political scandals of the Labour administration: ‘cash for honours’ and ‘donorgate’, a row over donations through third parties. For the latter, Watt was thrown to the wolves by Brown, his loyalty repaid with a forced resignation and the threat of prison.
Watt was the first insider to break ranks after Brown entered no10. Published while Brown was still clinging on to power and serialised over two weeks by the Mail on Sunday, Inside Out sent shockwaves through Westminster.
Reviews
This book is devastating. My jaw dropped. It s the most explosive political book for years. Peter Watt knows where the bodies are buried and isn't afraid to tell us (FRASER NELSON, Editor, The Spectator)
In its exhortingly page-turning style, you cannot fail to breathe the roller-coaster atmosphere that a "good versus evil" politics of the tribe inevitably engineers...To sum up, Inside Out has its layers of anger, its layers of pain, its layers of betrayal its layers of traditional tribalism. But it also has a melancholy acceptance that some things can only be survived, not vanquished. (21st Century Fix)