I bought this book mostly out of spite, after the disgusting smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. But it is worth reading on its own. Union officers are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to financing direct action and protecting their members’ money; I suspect that lessons can be drawn from Scargill’s successes, and from the vicious attacks on him.

The book is kind of a slog, but then the material is hugely depressing. This book constitutes strong evidence for the argument that newspapers, TV stations, and other mass media apparatus should be democratically controlled by their audiences, rather than by private individuals and corporations. Robert Maxwell is a hugely unpleasant figure—and he’s far from the worst. My impression is that British news is even worse now.