Hamer Shawcross is born into a poor but aspirational working-class family in Manchester. Studious and hard-working, he becomes a socialist activist, goes into politics and rises to become part of the privileged upper classes he began by opposing. Hamer s trajectory is mirrored by the rise of the Labour movement in Britain from the mid-19th century to the 1930s.

This wonderfully perceptive study of a career politician serves as a telling elegy for the Labour Party.