On 21 November, the political journalist Tim Shipman concluded his quartet of Brexit doorstoppers. The books in his Out series (all framed around that word: All Out War, Fall Out, No Way Out and now, simply, Out) have uncovered the gritty details and factional warfare of May and Johnson years. And they have proved unlikely blockbusters, consistently topping the Sunday Times bestseller list.
Each book is packed with parliamentary procedure, chronicling the low-level machinations of earnest 25-year-old staffers, desperate to prove themselves to their bosses through increasingly fraught briefings and backstabbing. It’s a type of thrill usually reserved for political anoraks. But somehow, despite their weight and subject matter, the books managed to capture the attention of the rest of the country, too. The series has dominated Waterstones shopfronts and avoided the political tome’s usual fate: a brief flurry of interest around publication, normally promoted through broadsheet serialisation, before a rapid relegation to the bargain bin.
Their success feels like an artefact of the heady Brexit years when indicative votes could result in international headlines and John Bercow could develop a dedicated fanbase. Since 2016 there have been two constant refrains from the chattering classes. The first, “Why is nobody talking about Brexit?” is usually quickly followed by the second, “Why can’t you just stop banging on about it?” And yet, Shipman’s books sell big. Their success is partly down to his style: his books race along like airport thrillers. It is also down to their constant revelations, and their ability to generate headlines on publication.
But more than their historical value, more than their drama, or their backstabbing or backroom deals, Shipman’s books have the virtue of an uneasy sort of comfort. Shipman is a “cock-up, not conspiracy” kind of guy, seeing our recent history as chaos, not teleology. In his narrative there was no masterplan. Dominic Cummings was not an evil genius. Cambridge Analytica did not warp the consciousness of the country. The books confirm, again and again, that the story was less in control than we suspected it to be. Our leaders may have run the country into the ground, may have acted like a parody of student politicians fighting over the lowest rung of the ladder, but they were not conspiring against us. In Shipman’s story, they couldn’t have, even if they tried.
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