28 Dec 2011 10:04:01
Waterstone's asked 150 MPs which book they would most like to be given this Christmas and Mullin's chronicling of the time before his years in office came in first, with 4% of the total vote. The title was selected only by Labour MPs, however, with Tories preferring their biographies with a less political edge, and plumping instead for Claire Tomalin's prize-winning Charles Dickens: A Life. Liberal Democrat MPs responding to the ComRes/Waterstone's annual survey went for the satirical Private Eye: The First 50 Years as their top Christmas pick, also revealing a hitherto unexpected appreciation for poetry by choosing Pam Ayres's autobiography as their next most popular title.
Just one novel, Peter Temple's thriller White Dog, made the politicians' overall top 10, with MPs hoping to fill time on the 25th with Robin Harris's history of the Tory party The Conservatives, Alastair Darling's take on the financial crisis Back From the Brink and the late Philip Gould's look at "how New Labour changed British politics forever", The Unfinished Revolution, instead. Jeremy Paxman's exploration of the influence of the British, Empire, Simon Sebag Montefiore's "biography" of Jerusalem and Max Hastings' history of the second world war, All Hell Let Loose, round out a top 10 heavily dominated by male authors.
But all was not consensus. One possibly cash-strapped Labour MP was after the Brick Development Association's Guide to Successful Brickwork, inclusive of "an extensive glossary of brickwork terms for ease of reference", as their Christmas present, while Waterstone's spotted "a sense of humour" in other individual selections. Two "irascible" Conservative MPs were hoping to find Labour's Alternative Economic Plan by Ed Balls and Ed Miliband in their stockings – a title they "helpfully" designated as fiction, said the bookseller – while another Tory politician was after Angela Merkel's How I Solved the Euro Crisis.
"Even if those titles existed, they'd be pretty dry reads at Christmas. MPs are better off with the real books they've selected," said spokesman Jon Howells.
