"This is not a manifesto," says Caroline Lucas, in the prologue to her book. While she is a politician par excellence and one of the few I might trust with the keys to my house, this line is proved something of an untruth as she takes the reader, over the course of the next 260 pages, through her vision of the next Parliament. This book was published just prior to the 2015 General Election; as a consequence, there are sections akin to watching a friend read A Song of Ice and Fire. There's such naked, impassioned hope that the new Parliament will be a coalition of the Left, such faith that the electorate will choose to shake off the arguments of the Conservative-Liberal austerity programme. Such a thing, of course, did not come to pass - did not come even close.
But despite this - or perhaps because of it - there is a joy to this book. It lays bare some of the more arcane traditions of the Mother of Parliaments, and pulls no punches in talking about the reforms she would propose to the Upper and Lower Houses. At the same time, there is an intimate sense; a sense that she is sharing a fragment of a world most of us will never know. It is wonderful to experience.
For all that Lucas is a Cassandra, foreseeing chaos and yet effecting no change, she writes with wit, charm, and optimism. Whether you agree with her or not, these are qualities that are wonderful to behold in any politician.
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