Memoirs of Lib Dem campaigner Lord Rennard to Biteback

Biteback Publishing has signed the memoirs of former chief executive and director of campaigns and elections for the Liberal Democrats, Lord Rennard. 

Iain Dale, m.d. of Biteback Publishing, acquired world rights to Winning Here by Rennard, which will be published in January 2018 and supported by a "major" publicity campaign.

Rennard’s long relationship with the Liberals, and later the Liberal Democrats, began when a compassionate Liberal candidate helped his disabled mother receive her widowed mother allowance. 

Rennard helped the Liberal Party win power in Liverpool in the 1970s and campaigned for Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins in by-elections which helped the Liberal SDP Alliance to compete for power before its acrimonious collapse in the late ‘80s. He was then responsible for a series of "spectacular" by-election victories that rescued his party’s fortunes and he oversaw a huge increase in the party’s number of MPs and elected representatives. 

This volume of memoirs spans his first 30 years in politics (to 2006) and includes the highs and lows of his party during the leaderships of Paddy Ashdown (including his hopes for coalition with Tony Blair) and Charles Kennedy (including the latter’s enforced resignation after publicly revealing his problem with alcohol). 

Dale said: "There will never be a better insider account of a political party. Winning Here is a record that shows how election campaigns are really fought and won and how party leaders change and parties develop."