Polling firm ComRes has published its annual list of the books MPs have been reading this year, based on a survey of 154 MPs weighted by party and region to be representative of the House of Commons.
Here’s what Lib Dem MPs have taken to the beach with them…
2014
1. Capital in the 21st Century – Thomas Piketty
2. When Britain Burned the White House – Peter Snow
(And here’s what they took last year…
2013
1. What Has Nature Ever Done For Us – Tony Juniper)
Piketty’s tome polled strongly with MPs of all three main parties; though Margaret Thatcher (who topped last year’s list) wasn’t far behind:
All MPs
2014
1. Capital in the 21st Century – Thomas Piketty
2. Margaret Thatcher – Charles Moore
3. Hard Choices – Hilary Clinton
4. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
2013
1. Margaret Thatcher – Charles Moore
2. This Boy – Alan Johnson
3. Five Days in May – Andrew Adonis
4. Edmund Burke – Jesse Norman
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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7 Comments
They’re a sad bunch aren’t they? I wonder what they really read?
Margaret Thatcher
(well, The Iron Lady)
Lets hope if there is a Lib Dem leadership election in 2015 that the Picketty book will be influential amongst the candidates.
Pickety is difficult reading.
I’ve been working through it for months and still haven’t passed the half way mark.
Very interesting though…
@Geoffrey Payne
I hope that it is isn’t. Far better they spend their time out there talking to people rather than, as so often seems the way, the debate being focused on one book by an academic that is, in the case of Piketty, focused on data rather than the day to day thoughts and feelings of those who are in it as statistics.
I adore academics, I work with them and respect them, but they are part of a far wider debate and when one certain work or author becomes the topic de jour then debate becomes about it or them rather than listening to people themselves.
It is a great shame that Mammon’s Kingdom by D Marquand did not feature.
War and Peace? Given what is happening in Ukraine right now it is timely to recall Tolstoy’s succinct analysis: “War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war”