Enough Said

LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2017 How do we discuss serious ideas in the age of 24-hour news? What was rhetoric in the past and what should it be now? And what does Islamic State have in common with Donald Trump? We’ve never had more information or more opportunity to debate the issues of the day. Yet the relationship between politicians, the media and the public is characterised by suspicion, mistrust and apathy. What has gone wrong? Enough Said reveals how political, social and technological change has transformed our political landscape – and how we talk about the issues that affect us all. Political rhetoric has become stale and the mistrust of politicians has made voters flock to populists who promise authenticity, honesty and truth instead of spin, evasiveness and lies. Featuring Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin, Tony Blair and George Osborne, Silvio Berlusconi and many more star performers, Enough Said shows how public language is losing its power, and how an ominous gap is opening between the governed and those who govern. The result of decades of first-hand experience of politics and media, this is an essential, brilliant diagnosis of what we should stop doing and what we should start doing in order to reinvigorate Western democracy.

THE INSTANT #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A TIMES BOOK OF THE SUMMER 'Alan Bennett is our greatest living writer' Daily Mail 'A legend of British letters' Financial Times 'In an age of curated self-belief, his vulnerabilities feel refreshing, his reticence almost radical' The Times 20 September. Have a notion for a radio series - Awkward Conversations. Enough Said is Alan Bennett's fourth collection of diaries and prose. Covering the turbulent years 2016 to 2024, the diaries take us through lockdown, Brexit, the reign of Johnson, the rise of Trump and the death of the Queen. In between, we take the train with him back and forth to Yorkshire, celebrate the herons, the newts and the street fairs, and lament the scarcity of curlews, the closure of the last local bank and the deteriorating welfare state. There is the premiere of Allelujah!, the revived Talking Heads, the publication of two Sunday Times bestsellers and the filming of The Choral. 2024 is the year that Alan turns ninety; he reflects on old age and the importance of luck. He looks back to childhood and recalls an idyllic wartime month as an evacuee. A book for the bedside, this is poignant, funny, contemplative Alan Bennett, as he records life both personal and political in his most distinct of voices.

THE INSTANT #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A TIMES BOOK OF THE SUMMER 'Alan Bennett is our greatest living writer' Daily Mail 'A legend of British letters' Financial Times 'In an age of curated self-belief, his vulnerabilities feel refreshing, his reticence almost radical' The Times 20 September. Have a notion for a radio series - Awkward Conversations. Enough Said is Alan Bennett's fourth collection of diaries and prose. Covering the turbulent years 2016 to 2024, the diaries take us through lockdown, Brexit, the reign of Johnson, the rise of Trump and the death of the Queen. In between, we take the train with him back and forth to Yorkshire, celebrate the herons, the newts and the street fairs, and lament the scarcity of curlews, the closure of the last local bank and the deteriorating welfare state. There is the premiere of Allelujah!, the revived Talking Heads, the publication of two Sunday Times bestsellers and the filming of The Choral. 2024 is the year that Alan turns ninety; he reflects on old age and the importance of luck. He looks back to childhood and recalls an idyllic wartime month as an evacuee. A book for the bedside, this is poignant, funny, contemplative Alan Bennett, as he records life both personal and political in his most distinct of voices.