Julian Priestley

Putsch Julian Priestley

Britain. At the beginning of the 21st century. A Labour government on its last legs: divided, demoralised, staring into the abyss. Is Raphael Sinclair the saviour? He looks the part. He speaks well. A former minister who resigned on a matter of principle. He was right about the wars. He was right about the credit crunch. But it's the company he keeps - a group of young left-wing radicals who'll stop at nothing to hoist themselves into power. Who's using whom? Sinclair is flattered by them. And he's infatuated with one of them in particular. In the end it's a race against the clock. Can Sinclair win power before the whole edifice falls to the ground? Will his technicolour private life on such public display spoil his chances? Just how tolerant has Britain become in the era of 'marriage for all'? Will the growing economic storm and the threat of violence hanging over his campaign derail his Insurgency? The twists and turns keep coming until the very last pages. In this his first novel, Julian Priestley, a former Secretary General of the European Parliament, who has spent a life-time in the political world, brings that experience to bear. His published books have been about European politics. He wrote the outline of this - his first novel, and set mostly in the UK - in 2013, two years before the Corbyn capture of the Labour Party which has shown that much described here is not in the realms of the impossible. But the characters you will find in these pages are very different - and a little more colourful - than those now at the helm of the Party.