What are the problems that face a new Prime Minister when his effective parliamentary majority is five, his party have been in opposition for thirteen years and an economic crisis seems to threaten an immediate devaluation of the pound?
Anthony Shrimsley has watched and analysed the first steps taken by the Labour Government as seen from several vantage points: the House of Commons, Fleet Street, Number Ten Downing Street itself and Washington during the Prime Ministers visit.
The appointment of Cabinet, junior ministers and government advisors; relations with the Whitehall, service and City mandarins; the administrative problems created by new departments and the social and professional organisation of the official residence at Downing Street are one side of the picture. Economic affairs, the aircraft industry, military spending and the railways all had to be fitted in with crises in Europe, Central Africa and the Far East, and a first trip to Washington. Finally, with a minute majority and the defeat of the Foreign Secretary at a by-election, the whole future of the Government and its ambitions being in the balance.
Anthony Shrimsley is a critical but not unsympathetic observer. He knows the background and the personalities involved and has written a fascinating, lively and thought-provoking account of the first hundred days.