Politically Homeless by Matt Forde

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This is account of Matt Forde’s journey from youthful activist to jaded comic and commentator. He begins in a place of naive optimism, perhaps it is the gift/curse of every generation to think that they will be the ones that actually change the world for the better. Coming of age as New Labour replaced the worn out remains of Thatcher's Tories played into that narrative for him.

He has now fallen out of love with the Labour party and the book is limited by the resulting narrow focus on bitter critique of Labour as led by Corbyn. I found too much of it to be sound bites played for laughs. It is a very specific group, the socially liberal centre left, among the politically homeless that he is interested in. He doesn’t really manage to address the wider malaise of our current political age – in particular to way in which social media has created a state of perpetual campaign and eaten any space for reasoned political dialogue. It is disappointing given the final chapter when he talks about his “The Political Party” podcast is a now rare example of a space for such dialogue – suggesting that Forde “gets it” despite the impression given by the preceding 12 chapters…