The Troublemakers

Every era of British politics has its rebels. The MPs who defied their leaders, split their parties and refused to go quietly - dismissed as dangerous idealists or self-serving wreckers, yet whose ideas, in time, often proved transformative. In The Troublemakers, acclaimed political journalist Steve Richards traces this hidden thread through modern British history, from John Bright opposing the Crimean War to Nigel Farage reshaping the right, taking in the Chamberlains and Powells, the Benns and Trusses along the way.

Richards draws on decades of political reporting and interviews with many of his subjects to ask what it actually takes to challenge the orthodoxy from within: what motivates the troublemakers, how they survive - or don't - and whether their legacies ultimately vindicate their dissent. Are the rebels who buck the party line reckless egotists, or are they the only politicians with the courage to say what everyone else knows to be true?

A brilliantly observed account of dissent and conviction in British public life, The Troublemakers asks a question that has haunted Richards since his student days in the 1980s: the prime ministers get the plaudits, but are the troublemakers the true heroes of political history?