Out

The hotly anticipated final book of bestselling author Tim Shipman’s Brexit quartet. The Johnson Years to Rishi Sunak

'Magnificent… Pacy and packed with delicious details… Shipman puts you in the room… His analysis is sharp and full of insight… For those seeking a moment-by-moment insider history it will not be topped' FT

How did Boris Johnson supersede Theresa May to become Britain's Prime Minister? How did he pursue his promise to Get Brexit Done amidst multiple Brexit secretaries, repeated coup attempts and reshuffles, and an extraordinarily terse relationship with Brussels? What really happened in Downing Street – from the political choices to the party place settings – as the pandemic took the world in its grip? Out follows from May's resignation through to the tussles over the final Brexit deal, the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and our shortest serving PM ever.

If pre-Theresa May Westminster was largely obsessed with the clever idealism of The West Wing, marinated in the farce of The Thick of It, the parable of these years became Game of Thrones, the pseudo-medieval swords and shagging epic pitching warring factions against each other in the quest for the iron throne. At the centre of the action was Tim Shipman, chief political commentator for the Sunday Times, taking notes on the guts and gore and tears.

Out is a riveting, rambunctious account of the most dramatic years in modern British politics.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR NO WAY OUT:

An Instant Sunday Times Bestseller

'Tim Shipman is the doyen of contemporary chroniclers of the Brexit era. Like its best-selling predecessors, All Out War and Fall Out, this new book is meticulously sourced, merciless and revelatory. It is a closely observed study of power, and how it is gained, used and lost. It is testament to Shipman’s journalistic skills that he can make a lengthy account of a prolonged, agonisingly protracted political failure into a fast-paced narrative'

FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Meticulously constructed… There are enough tasty vignettes and morsels of gossip to make the main course of backstops and “meaningful” votes enjoyable for fans of the previous volumes. It is also a scrupulously even-handed account that will be of great value to future historians. As in the first two books, Shipman avoids easy caricatures and sets out the real-world constraints and pressures acting on the players.’

THE TIMES

'The quantity of work required to tell a complicated, many-sided story in such detail is astonishing. What do we learn? Well, many things of genuine interest to political followers and historians. Is his book worth it? In the end, undoubtedly yes… in an age of short-attention-span social media caricature, this is proper work, the real stuff of understanding. Historians will lean on it heavily. Would-be political leaders of the future will learn from it. It will set the narrative about how Brexit was handled, in a way other journalists can only envy'

ANDREW MARR, NEW STATESMAN

'Shipman has had a sound claim to the mantle of master chronicler… May is a difficult PM to write about and Shipman does the best job to date of making a dutiful, uncommunicative and limited leader come to life'

EVENING STANDARD