Books

• The Honourable Ladies: Volume I

  Biteback Publishing

  

  Biteback Publishing is delighted to announce a major new project, a two volume series of biographies of every female MP ever to be elected to the House of Commons.

  On December 14 1918 Countess Markievicz became the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons. She was elected for Sinn Fein, but never took her seat. Eleven months later, Nancy, Lady Astor, became the first woman to be elected and to take her seat. One hundred years later, 454 other women followed in their stead.

  The book’s co-editors, Biteback publisher Iain Dale, and former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, are commissioning biographical essays on each of the 456 ‘Honourable Ladies’. Each of the contributors will be female.

  Volume I will contain profiles/biographies of the 169 female MPs to sit in the House of Commons between 1918 and 1997 and will be published in hardback in October 2018.

  Volume II will contain profiles/biographies of the 287 female MPs first elected between 1997 and 2019 and will be published in November 2019.

• Conservative Leaders

  Biteback 2015

  

  Jo-Anne Nadler is one of the specialist political writers contributing to this scholarly review of Conservative Party leaders from Baldwin to Cameron. With authors and academics including Professor Tim Bale, Matthew d’Acona and Anthony Seldon this project will use objective criteria as a basis for examining and comparing the relative strengths and weaknesses of a century of leaders facing different constraints and historical challenges.

• Too Nice To Be A Tory - It's My Party & I'll Cry If I Want To

  Simon & Schuster 2004

  

  Jo-Anne Nadler is a professional, sophisticated urban career woman. And a Conservative. In recent years her affiliation has come to feel more like an affliction - one of educated society's remaining taboos. Why? her liberal friends ask her. Why does she persist in thinking the Conservative Party is the way forward?

  Fearlessly delving back through her own history of Young Conservative balls, bedroom posters of Mrs Thatcher and a career which has taken her from party activist to party worker to professional party observer, Jo-Anne Nadler explores both her own political awakening and the seeming political somnolence of the post-Thatcher party.

  Reviews

  • "Witty and penetrating, Jo-Anne Nadler's book makes painful reading for Tories"

  • "A frank account of a critical juncture from a privileged viewpoint. Unusually free from malice Jo-Anne Nadler's testimony will form part of history's verdict on what may be the death, or could prove the rebirth, of the Conservative Party."

  • "A masterly survey of this epic period. The only mystery is: when is Jo-Anne Nadler going to become a Tory MP?"

  • "There are witty pen portraits of Tory figures, entertaining anecdotes, and thoughtful consideration of why the Tories might have become unpopular."

  • "This excellent book is the first in a long while to have kept me reading on into irresponsible hours of the morning. It is a lively, entertaining, informative and fascinating account of Conservative politics since 1979."

  • "Has the party changed or have I? She asks. This book chronicles her witty and often incisive search for answers."

  • "Charming and affectionate memoir of life behind the scenes at the top of the Party..."

  • "Jo-Anne Nadler was able to rise above the unattractive skin of some Tories. This detachment makes her rather good at skewering the reasons why Tories are so disliked ...Again and again she shines a powerful light on the division between alluring Tory measures and distinctly un-alluring Tory men".

  • "Nadler comes across as a warm and witty woman."

  • "Huge fun. Jo-Anne Nadler's memoir zips thought he last twenty five years of Tory history from a refreshingly different angle - a highly informed and intelligent insight."

  • "I am reading Jo-Anne Nadler's "Too Nice to be a Tory". It's a really funny account of the past 25 years in her life, as she progresses from archetypal Young Conservative to grown-up girl about town."

• William Hague - In His Own Right

  Methuen Publishing 2000

  

  The only biography of the former Tory leader was published in 2000 when William Hague was three years into leadership and the book was serialised in the Mail on Sunday.

  William Hague agreed to cooperate with Jo-Anne Nadler when she proposed the project, but it is not an official biography and is an objective and revealing study.

  From ultimate 'Tory Boy' to Tory leader, William Hague: In his own Right, reveals the full story of a real political animal as well as chronicling the first, difficult years for the Conservative Party adjusting to opposition.

  Reviews

  • "The best service in representing the real Mr. Hague has been done not by his spin doctors and advisers but by Jo-Anne Nadler. Certainly no hagiography her picture paints a picture of the guy I knew before the 1997 election, but now capable of the ruthlessness displayed when he dismissed Lord Cranbourne from the shadow cabinet."

  • "His illuminating biographer, Jo-Anne Nadler, tells us as early as page 9 that an Oxford chum advised Hague he should forget about the leadership and "fuck his brains out for the next few years"."