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What is your favourite book of all time, and why?
I read The Death of Yugoslavia by Allan Little and Laura Silber at university and it has led to a life-long fascination with the politics and history of the Balkans and some of the most interesting work I’ve ever done.

 

What is your favourite book to read on holiday, and why?
Something either very light and easy or that requires a level of concentration I couldn’t give it while performing work and council duties. Last holiday I got through a couple of Ian Fleming novels, re-read the quite brilliant ‘Joy in the Morning’ by PG Wodehouse and the Fabian Commission report on life chances.

What is your favourite political book/biography, and why?
I thought the Political Brain by Drew Westen was groundbreaking and immediately became a must-read for any political campaigner. Campbell Bunk: The worst street in North London between the wars is a fascinating social history of the area I now represent.

What was your favourite book as a child, and why?
When I was very young I loved the Church Mice books by Graham Oakley (the finely illustrated series on the inhabitants of Wortlethorpe Church), and I wish the His Dark Materials books by Philip Pullman had been written when I was a child.

What is your least favourite book, and why?
Anything by Noam Chomsky.  I see him as a man who cast doubt that genocide took place at Srebrenica. He combines a remarkable ability to bend facts to suit his arguments with a following prone to aggressive sycophancy.

 

Which literary character would you most like to be and why?
I would want to be  Jeeves from P.G. Wodehouse’s classic stories. He combines all of the skills a good whip needs!

 

Cllr Richard Watts Labour group chief whip
London Borough of Islington