UK general election 2024: FT readers recommend five books to read

Andrew Rawnsley’s The End of the Party ought to be revisited. It is a shrewd reminder (perhaps a late one for the Tories, but not for Labour) of how the most difficult thing for a party to do in government is reinvent itself, and imagine what the future might hold.

— Fergal Jeffreys

I recommend Why We Get The Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman and How Westminster Works . . . And Why It Doesn’t by Ian Dunt. Read these and you will realise that it doesn’t matter who you vote for: whoever wins will be incompetent (as cleverly argued by Hardman), and with little chance of changing the country for the better (as is concluded in the analysis offered by Dunt).

— Marzili

Jess Phillips’s The Life of an MP is an interesting account of the responsibilities of an MP, and is more upbeat than you’d expect.

— Avs1

Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through: The Surprising Story of Britain’s Economy from Boom to Bust and Back Again by Duncan Weldon. This book argues that there are limitations for politicians to reach substantial achievements in the short-term. In the medium to long-term however, their choices can have a palpable impact on the country. A short and highly readable book, it reminds us that politicians of the past were not necessarily more capable or visionary, than contemporary ones.

— Fons

Mariana Mazzucato’s Mission Economy explains the economic and policy rationale behind Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s mission approach. But it also exposes how it deviates from its premises, and why Mazzucato wouldn’t consider Labour’s “missions” as missions.

— Pete W