Indeholder "About the Author", "Praise for Things Can Only Get Better", "Acknowledgements", "Author's note", "Where there is discord ... -- General Election - 3 May 1979", "Best foot forward -- Labour Leadership Election - 4 and 10 November 1980", "Jobs not bombs -- American Presidential Election - 4 November 1980", "Political animals -- Labour Party Deputy Leadership Election - 27 September 1981", "Gotcha -- English County Council Elections - 6 May 1982", "Labour hold Jarrow -- General Election - 9 June 1983", "Gissa job -- Exeter Guild of Students Elections - 7 March 1984", "Working for London -- North Battersea GLC By-Election - 27 June 1985", "Labour of love -- Election of Queenstown Ward Secretary - 13 January 1986", "Westminster, please -- Fulham By-Election - 10 April 1986", "The jewel in the crown -- Wandsworth Council Elections - Queenstown Ward - 8 May 1986", "Three cheers for Alf Dubs -- General Election - 11 June 1987", "I know thee not, old man -- Labour Party Leadership Election - 1 October 1988", "The road to Tiananmen Square -- European Elections - 15 June 1989", "The candidate -- Wandsworth Council Elections - Fairfield Ward - 3 May 1990", "Maggie Maggie Maggie – gone gone gone -- Conservative Party Leadership Election - 20 and 27 November 1990", "April fool -- General Election - 9 April 1992", "Bacon is delicious -- Labour Leadership Election - 18 July 1992", "My party, right or left -- Lambeth Council Elections - 5 May 1994", "It's a wonderful life -- Halifax Building Society Conversion Ballot - 23 February 1997", "Things can only get better -- General Election - 1 May 1997".

En samling erindringsglimt. Skrevet med tungen i kinden, tror jeg. Han var Labour-mand og det var en ørkenvandring i tiden med Margaret Thatcher. Og ja, Michael Foot blev aldrig premierminister. ( )

I absolutely loved this book. What a great chronicle of the Thatcher years - that is if you weren't a fan of hers. O'Farrell has a deadpan style and an ability to recognize his own flaws as well as he does Dame Thatcher's.

He so beautifully captures the time, and the seeming absurdity of her win after win - which I say not as a Thatcher hater but rather as someone who can see serendipity when it's this obvious. For a nonBrit reader such as me, reading this was analogous to how I imagine nonAmericans feel about two victories for Dubya. How ON EARTH did it happen? An excellent read right now as her death has created somewhat of a cottage industry in (re)analyzing her record.

I think what I aprpeciated most of all was is ability to point out the Left's role in getting her elected again and again. When a movement has no vision or ideology, it shouldn't surprise us when the other side wins. When that movement gets a new story, as it did for better or for worse with Tony Blair, then the results are more in keeping with what one might expect. ( )

Funny and easy to relate to when you've also been one of those Labour supporter during the dark years. Writing this in 2010, I wonder should I read it again to remind me what is to come! ( )

I read it in one sitting during which I laughed, I cried, and I hated Thatcher all over again. After ten years of New Labour I can't help feeling that things haven't got a lot better, have they? I also found the ending profoundly depressing; was there really no alternative? ( )

Having canvassed at local elections myself, several of his campaign-trail anecdotes rang true.

I found it was a real page-turner and, like Nick Hornby, read it in a single sitting.

Ultimately it left me feeling disappointed. Perhaps that was the point, but politics doesn't end just because one becomes disillusioned.

In the light of the ensuing nine years of Blair's government, there is the danger of thinking that everything had to be thus.

There is no alternative is a battle-cry I never thought to hear from a Labour supporter! ( )