Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14986 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 333 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
"Nothing gets my hackles up more," writes John O'Farrell, "than people who should know better copping out of the political system because they think they are above it." No-one could question O'Farrell's commitment to the political process after reading this hysterical, trenchant and admirably self-aware account of 'eighteen miserable years in the life of a labour supporter'.

Born in Maidenhead to a family so irredeemably middle-class that as a student he found himself carefully punctuating his graffiti ("Jobs, comma, not bombs. Full stop."), O'Farrell maps the unglamorous underbelly of politics--the cold community centres, the estates you can never canvas because the security doors won't let you in, the pleasure to be had in aggressively doorstepping Jehovah's Witnesses. Most impressively, O'Farrell records the psychological cost of it all. "There is," he admits, "something perverse in the fact that the task of making the world a happier place required us to stop having fun." His account of his joyless, sexless, right-on youth will surely have bells jangling in many a balding graduate pate.

Growing up in a world where the Tories had trade-marked common sense, it was inevitable that O'Farrell's primary political release should be writing for Spitting Image. Now that Labour have, at terrible ideological cost, retaken the common ground, O'Farrell has turned that humour on himself. People of all political persuasions will enjoy this book. O'Farrell would hate us saying that--sadly for him, it is true. --Simon Ings

Synopsis
A personal account of a Labour supporter's miserable eighteen years under a Tory government. A literary debut which combines wit with barbed insight from the author who has been a full time comedy writer since the voters of Battersea sacked him from his previous job as an MP's researcher for the House of Commons.

From the Back Cover
Like bubonic plague and stone cladding, no-one took Margaret Thatcher seriously until it was too late. Her first act as leader was to appear before the cameras and do a V for Victory sign the wrong way round. She was smiling and telling the British people to f*** off at the same time. It was something we would have to get used to.

Things Can Only Get Better is the personal account of a Labour supporter who survived eighteen miserable years of Conservative government. It is the heartbreaking and hilarious confessions of someone who had been actively involved in helping the Labour party lose elections at every level.

Along the way he slowly came to realize that Michael Foot would never be prime minister, that vegetable quiche was not as tasty as chicken tikka masala and that the nuclear arms race was never going to be stopped by face-painting alone.

Customer Reviews

Fever Pitch for Politicos
Occasionally I see someone on the tube reading this book and I always feel envious that I no longer have the opportunity to read this book for the the first time again. I am of the same (general) age as O'Farrell so I am not sure that people in their twenties who don't remember Maggie T would get as much out of it as those of us who lived through the era O'Farrell describes but nevertheless I am confident that what they DO get out of it is more than they will get from most books out there on the shelves. As an utter cynicist who cannot see organised Labour (either the Old or New incarnation) through the rose-tinted glow as often does O'Farrell, I nevertheless acknowledge him as one of the finest humorists of his generation and I salute him! This book was a landmark for me as a review of the world in which I grew up and also restoring my faith in the power of the written word to make me laugh out loud in public.

Leaving behind ideals
I suppose I read this book late - ten years after publication and 10 years after Labour took power. Is there a book of the same title currently being penned by a despondent Conservative? Much of the criticism of the long in tooth Conservatives now seem so transferable to New Labour. In this book O'Farrell describes his personal travails of being a Labour party activist coinciding with the time when the party endured its longest spell out of power since its formation.

The book is funny and realistic, although some of the humour at times seems contrived and you then remember that O'Farrell has since become a comedy writer of some renown. I particularly admired his commitment and identified with his frustration at the lack of response from those he tried to reach with his message. You can literally feel his sheer despair at the constant re-election of a party, and above all a Prime Minister, who was getting it so obviously and disastrously wrong. "Why can't they see what I can see?" is his plaintiff cry, the one of all fanatics. I could also identify with him when he finally decided to drop his vegetarianism (part of the Labour Left package, together with no fashion sense, no humour and unilateral disarmament) in favour a large thick bacon sandwich.

By the end he seems to have almost ditched his political values as well and drawn comfort in a belief that this is the destiny of all faithful converts, seduced by comfort - the fight simply oozing away as other demands and concerns move in (family, security, home and lazy weekends). This may be satisfying to some, but I would have liked to have read of someone who transformed their belief to new circumstances, rather than diluted them down or gave up all together.

Funny if you are not right-wing (or you are and can laugh at yourself)
This book takes us on a political excursion from Maggie Thatcher (gawd bless 'er!) being elected in 1979 to Tony pre-Iraq Blair seizing her throne in 1997.

O'Farrell was a left-wing activist at the time (and actually ran for office at one point!) and this book is his view of the events of the time. It contains a lot of Spitting Image type humour which is not surprising as he was one of the writers for the 1980s show. As he is a leftie there are few barbed attacks on Tony Blair or Gordon Brown and the majority of his vitriol is reserved for Mrs T herself and her fellow conspirators - SORRY, politicans . . .

It is funny, with lots of oneliners and amusing stories. The problems are more that, post-Iraq, Labour and Tony B don't appear anyway NEAR as refreshing as they did back in 1997, so a lot of O'Farrell's 'Labour is the best force since sliced bread' type comments now appear shallow, if not naive - sure, that's not really HIS fault, I agree.

Plus, if you are right-wing or have a lot of right-wing beliefs you will not find this book amusing reading UNLESS you are able to laugh at yourself and your right-wing beliefs.

Moreover, like his other books, this one lacks the obvious elements of conventional novel-writing, such as description, plot and characterisation. It's basically a big monologue/rant about Tories + anti-Tory gags.

This novel will make you laugh but as it is a monologue will not engage you on any other level (no descriptions, emotions, non-thumbnail sketch characters etc). AND, if you were not actually old enough to remember the events and characters from 1979-97 then I'm not sure you will get a lot of his jokes . . .

Still, it is funny!
7/10