Reasons To Be Cheerful

In every major political event of the last twenty-five years, Mark Steel has managed to play an extremely minor role. Punished by his headmaster for eating a banana in public, Mark Steel decided to commit his life to eradicating injustice. In his attempts, in the late 70's, to persuade his pub mates of the political validity of non-sexist attitudes, he was mostly called a 'poof'. And then, innocently wandering into the heat of battle during the Brixton riots in 1981, he was wrongfully arrested for stealing shoes. He's protested at a lucky dip stall in a local fete in the cause of anti-fascism; he's hidden striking steel workers under an eiderdown to defeat Thatcher's union laws; and in the GLA elections of May 2000 he received 1,823 votes as a candidate for the London Socialist Alliance. This is an extremely funny account of a staggeringly unsuccessful political life.