The life of one of the greatest British Prime Ministers - by an author who knows the scene from his years as a senior Minister in Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet.Robert Peel (1788-1850), as much as any man in the nineteenth century, transformed Great Britain into a modern nation. He invented our police force, which became a model for the world. He steered through the Bill which allowed Catholics to sit in Parliament. He reorganised the criminal justice system. Above al...

The acclaimed Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulersElizabeth II is the longest-serving monarch who ever sat on the English or British throne. Yet her personality and influence remain elusive. This book, by a senior politician who has spent significant periods of time in her company, and is also a distinguished historian, portrays her more credibly than any other yet published.Douglas Hurd was a politicia...

Noisy popular liberal interventionism? Or a more conservative, diplomatic approach concentrating on co-operation between nations? This is the debate that lies at the heart of modern politics and Hurd traces its most interesting and influential exponents.He starts with Canning and Castelreagh in post Waterloo Britain; to a generation later, the victory of the interventionist Palmerston over Aberdeen; then to Salisbury (Imperialism) and Grey (European balance of power); and finally t...

Sir James Percival, a cool, world-weary veteran of Tory politics, finds himself with a small but workable majority after 7 years of Labour rule and might be forgiven for looking forward to a quiet life. But life, especially in politics, isn't like that. His 2nd wife Helena & disreputable son Antony don't get on & the move to No.10 leads to flare-ups that can't be kept private. The Cabinet are soon at odds over Ireland where a new wave of violence has crested out of a calm sea. Popular, bri...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Elizabeth II: The Steadfast by Douglas Hurd, read by Jeremy Clyde.Elizabeth II is the longest-serving monarch who ever sat on the English or British throne. Yet her personality and influence remain elusive. This book, by a senior politician who has spent significant periods of time in her company, and is also a distinguished historian, portrays her more credibly than any other yet published.

As an MP, Douglas Hurd would write a new short story every year during the summer Parliamentary recess. This collection comprises ten tales, including a moving account of a family in Bosnia (The Last Day of Summer), a caper about drugrunning off Florida (A Suitcase Between Friends), and a grimly realistic Ulster vignette (Fog of Peace). Each of these stories reflects the intelligent concerns of a politician engaged in, and committed to, both the everyday world of domestic matters and at th...

Prime Minister Simon Russell's personal alarm clock is ticking away, while outside, beyond No. 10, prison riots, bombs in Ireland, corporate blackmail in China and civil unrest in Russia jostle for attention. From the smallest details of the PM's office to the global significance of an international crisis, Douglas Hurd's fine political novel illustrates the political process with real authenticity.With the narrative momentum of a gripping thriller, The Shape of Ice demons...

Somewhere in the Indian ocean a coup d'etat threatens a country to which Britain has treaty obligations. The Foreign Secretary has been killed in an aircrash: rather than remodel his government on the eve of an election the Prime Minister has promoted a senior and much respected backbencher. A rising TV commentator, feeling that he is not rising fast enough, sees, and takes, his chance. An old love affair catches alight and forgotten jealousies flare into life again. All these elements are...

Five hard-hitting short stories and a political essay inspired by Douglas Hurd's visit to Sarajevo in 1992. All demonstrate preoccupations with the world tensions of the nineties, observed by Hurd's acute political eye.

After a narrow Labour Party victory that is dependent on Scottish Labour votes, the young, ambitious and right-wing Alcester sweeps in as Tory leader of the opposition. He has married the previous Prime Minister's daughter, and when their baby boy is kidnapped in mysterious circumstances it leads to an upsurge of support for the bright new Party leader. Alcester redoubles his campaign to throw the Scots out of the UK and in parallel the SLA bid for independence - there is violence througho...

Benjamin Disraeli was the most gifted parliamentarian of the nineteenth century and a superb orator, writer and wit - but how much do we really know about the man behind the words?'As Douglas Hurd and Edward Young point out in their splendidly written, finely judged and thoroughly persuasive book, a vast chasm yawned between the real Disraeli and his posthumous reinvention' Dominic Sandbrook, SUNDAY TIMES'Not only, they tell us in this vigorously debunking ...

An ambitious Conservative Junior Minister, Edward Dunsford, seems to be doing all the right things in his bid to become Foreign Secretary. Until, that is, a moment's sentimental weakness precipitates his career into chaos, his party into crisis and his own marriage onto the rocks.'So skilfully do Hurd and Lamport expose Whitehall's nerve-ends that their dissection reveals more of the system's internal workings than all the outpourings of the political researchers thick on the Westm...