Ross McKibbin writes:

Jack Straw was one of the longest serving ministers in the history of the Labour Party. He spent 13 years in office, as home secretary, foreign secretary, leader of the House of Commons and justice minister. His book’s title, Last Man Standing, derives from the curious rule by which the lord chancellor (which Straw became in 2007, at the same time as being secretary of state for justice) is the last member of an outgoing government to resign. But it could as well be called ‘The Making of a Politician’: some of the most revealing passages deal with his childhood and early life.

(LRB 22 November 2012)

Macmillan | Hardback 456 pp. |ISBN: 9781447222750