Customer Rating:  
Summary: Assured Rise to Obscurity
Comment: Although a cut above the usual run of (pluto-?)democratic memoirs, this autobiography does also suffer from the usual plethora of detail about the infighting on policy and the like, common -- and probably inevitably so -- to the genre.
Howe's rise, in retrospect and as he recalls it, seems irresistible, like a bubble rising to the surface. He was born to a relatively prosperous middle class family in Swansea, his father being a solicitor in the town. His education at Winchester fitted him well for his later occupations: National Service officer (Army), the Bar, The House of Commons (backbench M.P., Law Officer, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary), the House of Lords. Howe's urbane style (once heard by this reviewer after dinner at one of Inns of Court) is disarming, yet one has to wonder how much substance there was to his political belief.
Howe may have struggled, but nothing shows it here: his National Service was, inevitably, commissioned, spent in lovely parts of East Africa; he was even offered promotion to Captain if he would extend his service by only THREE MONTHS! The sun may shine both on the righteous and on the wicked, but sometimes it just seems to shine on some people more than others. Likewise at the Bar: good chambers, plenty of work and, within quite a short space of time, top quality work, plenty of money and eventual appointment as a Law Officer.
As a politician, Howe was a leading light of the Bow Group and wholeheartedly endorsed the postwar Macmillanite idea of the "Winds of Change" in Africa, blowing away the European empires. There is no word of regret for the chaos, war, famine and wildlife and forestry degradation (and massive corruption and state debt) which has been the result of premature decolonialization.
Unkindly (?) once described as a "dead sheep", Howe does seem to lack both ideological rigour (surprising in a Wykehamist) and belief. What a difference when compared to Mrs. Thatcher, to whom he was the Brutus on her Ides of March. To this reviewer's mind, Howe also lacks an insight into the lives of those (poor or not so poor) whose life paths have been less conventional and smoothed than his own. Perhaps it is not surprising that he never gained general popularity.
This book will be of interest to those with an historical interest in the Thatcher government.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Eminently readable memoir of the "dead sheep"
Comment: Thankfully the memoirs of the second most important person involved in the "Thatcher Revolution" avoid the turgid self-justification and whitewash common to most politicians. These memoirs are far more readable than any prose delivered by Howe at the Despatch Box in his career. They present a better starting point for an understanding of the formation and execution of the Thatcher administration than most literature on the subject. Howe was crucial to the era and was responsible for the final destruction of Thatcher's political career. A must for all students of contemporary British Political History.
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