'Club Government' confirmed for publication!

I've been busily revising the final manuscript of my first full book, Club Government, which will be released by I.B. Tauris in February 2018. It's a major work, which has taken me 7 years of research and editing - the first study of its kind to look at the nineteenth century phenomenon of "Club Government".

In the Great Fire of 1834, the old Palace of Westminster was burned down, and the next 35 years saw the parliamentary estate reduced to a noisy building site, while the present House of Parliament were constructed. Consequently, many of the functions of government were moved into the space of private members' clubs. And this had long-term ramifications for the way we do politics in Britain today: electioneering, party finance, candidate selection, party identity, whipping MPd, parliamentary architecture, MPs' entertainment - all of these had abiding, long-term influences from 'Club Government'. Meanwhile, the whole of British politics was in a state of flux after the 'Great Reform Act' of 1832, and "Club Government" helped fill the void of what the new "Victorian" politics would look like. It's a "lost" chapter in British political history, and the book draws on a unique range of archival and print material to tell an important story. 

Copies of "Club Government" can be pre-ordered through Waterstone's here.