Red Queen

Every socialist in the land should happily greet the news that the whole story is to be told afresh in the new biography by Anne Perkins. She gave us a taste of what is to come in her Guardian obituary. Her portrait will add a new lustre to Labour's history. Michael Foot, Tribune, May 2002Until the arrival on the political stage of Lady Thatcher, Castle was the most vivid, the most successful and the most controversial woman in British politics. Everyone had an opinion about her, whether they thought she was a dangerous subversive or a national heroine. A Labour activist from her childhood, she became active in party politics in her early twenties, whilst at the same time breaking into political journalism. Thirty years later she was the unexpected success of Harold Wilson's first administration, rising from a junior position to the inner cabinet in less than five years. But her radicalism, her flamboyant style and ultimately perhaps, her gender caught up with her and she was frozen out. Since her death at the age of ninety-one, she has been rightly regarded as a woman who could have achieved even greater power, had the boys' club cabal running the Labour Party not prevented her from doing so. Her uncompromising commitment to Labour's traditional values was, until the very end, a sharp contrast to the government of Tony Blair and New Labour. This is a riveting portrait of a truly remarkable woman - more than simply another political biography, it will be an inside account of what it was really like for a woman in twentieth century British politics and public life.