This Land cover art

This Land

The Story of a Movement

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

This Land

By: Owen Jones
Narrated by: Owen Jones
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

The number one best-selling author of Chavs and The Establishment returns with an urgent, revelatory account of where the left - and Britain - goes next.

On 12th December 2019, the left died. That at least was the view of much of Britain's media and political establishment, who saw the electoral defeat of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party as the damning repudiation of everything it stood for.

Yet, just over four years previously, the election of Corbyn as Labour leader seemed like a sea-change in politics: reanimating not just a party in apparently terminal decline but a country adrift, with a transformative vision based on a more just, more equal society and economy.

In this revelatory new book, Owen Jones explores how these ideas took hold, how they promised to change the nature of British politics - and how everything then went profoundly, catastrophically wrong. Why did the left fail so badly? Where, in this most critical of times, does that failure leave its values and ideas? Where does it leave Britain itself?

©2020 Owen Jones (P)2020 Penguin Audio Elections & Political Process Europe Great Britain Politics & Government Thought-Provoking

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Always Red cover art
The Establishment cover art
How They Broke Britain cover art
Chavs cover art
The Candidate cover art
Fully Automated Luxury Communism cover art
The Grand Tour: A Journey Through British Politics cover art
Stolen cover art
Abolish the Monarchy cover art
Broken Heartlands cover art
This Is Only the Beginning cover art
2019: How Modi Won India cover art
The Insider cover art
How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't cover art
Blue Murder cover art
We Can Do Better Than This cover art
All stars
Most relevant
I think Owen wanted to write this to give a more balanced view of what actually went on, good and bad. In those terms, he's succeeded. As I'm a member of Labour and interested it was easy for me to listen to, if unsettling at times but if you are not that bothered for politics it might not be first on your list.

I was already quite aware of how dysfunctional Labour was for some time. The Conservatives aren't much better but do have better instincts for power (usually) and greater support among those with power and wealth. But the Conservatives are nothing great, largely Labour fails because it is disunited, out of touch and also because it contains elements so opposed to each other they would rather see the party lose than give ground to their opponents.

The book itself shows the rather expected incompetence of Corbyn and the lack of an effective operation most of the time. It also shows that when you get things lined up and working together and clear polices, you can get traction. The most extraordinary thing is that for Labour things have worsened after Corbyn, which is not covered in this book. It is hard to believe that Starmer, who very likely planned a leadership run for some time, seems to get everything not just wrong, but hopelessly wrong after taking 'total control' of the operation. That tells me as much as did the eventual failure of Corbyn and worries me more in many ways.

As far as this book goes, perhaps for anoraks or those who want to get a feel for what went on, a fairly middle of the road interpretation that's reasonable. But perhaps the message is that we need better people getting in to politics, regardless of whether it be right, left or centre with a true service ethos.

A valuable read for the lessons to take, not fun

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
a worthwhile read for all sides of the corbyn debate and for those looking to make a better society.

Great read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I really enjoyed this book though it did make me dispair at a labour government that could have been.

An interesting look a recent period of labour.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a brilliant overview of the Corbyn years, the sabotage of the right, the hostile media, the lies, the slander, and what we can learn from the unlikely successes of the left as well as their failures.

Very Insightful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Guardian journalist, author and political commentator Owen Jones had a ringside seat during Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party for five years and this new book, narrated by the author, chronicles this fascinating period. We hear the story of how Corbyn was nearly not even on the ballot for the party leadership contest in 2015. Once elected, with the support of new party members on a the back of a campaign borrowed from Bernie Sanders that captured the imagination of young people and minorities he had to literally smash his way into his office. Corbyn set out a vision for fairer and kinder Britain based on social democratic principles turning away from the neo-liberalism of the Conservatives and New Labour. Against all odds, and despite the popular press deriding him as a no-hoper, Corbyn came agonisingly close to disposing the hapless Theresa May during the snap general election in 2017.

Surprisingly, this book is not universally complimentary of Corbyn as a leader and Owen Jones pulls no punches in outlining his weaknesses as a leader and as a politician. Must of this is due to Corbyn's lack of front bench experience and refusal to undertake media training, insisting instead that he spoke from the heart rather than a script and sometimes forgetting the keys messages he was supposed to deliver. Ultimately, it was the taint of antisemitism that Corbyn was never able to shake off that eroded his approval ratings with the public and his failure to engage in the Brexit debate where, according to Owen Jones, listening to Corbyn being passionate about Brexit was like "listening to someone reading a photocopier manual". He has a point as Brexit became the single most important issue during his leadership years.
From the Glasgow shipyards
To the Durham miners
To the Islington coffee shops
This Land belongs to you and me

If only Brexit had not got in the way. Oh no, Jeremy Corbyn.

From Glastonbury to catastrophe

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews