Reasons to be Cheerful - Mark Steel

Mark Steel presents his own personal memoirs as a member of the Socialist Workers Party. There is much with which most activists will empathise. What could well have been a fairly depressing tale of how many papers he sold one Saturday, how many recruits he got at Marxism 1992 and how he had been consistently on the losing side for the last 20 years is in fact a vibrant and extremely funny read. Those looking for some insight on life in the SWP would do well to flick through these pages. Steel accepts the theory of state capitalism - not because someone sat him down and lectured him on economics for years, but because it was an answer to the problem of being a ...  Read the complete review

Mark Steel is a rarity - a Marxist with a sense of humour. And in this book, he tells the story of his political life, from his first, tentative but guilt-ridden commmunist leanings in the strike-ridden 90s, to his all-out political opposition through the Thatcher years, to his disillusionment under New Labour. Steel makes his living as a comedian, and it shows - this book takes what could have been very dry subject matter, and piles on laugh after laugh. A lot of the humour comes from the very earnestness with which he and his pals fight for their various causes. For example, there was an occasion which had been billed as a huge protest march. Steel eagerly ...  Read the complete review