Red Queen: The Authorised Biography of Barbara Castle

Until the arrival of Lady Thatcher, Castle was the most charismatic, the most successful and the most controversial woman in the British political arena. Since her death, she has been rightly regarded as a woman who could have achieved even greater power, had the boys' club 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.