Books of the Year: Politics

Everyone's giving their verdict on Labour's years in power – but it's best from the horses' mouths

Funny things, secrets. As WikiLeaks has shown, knowing what people said in private doesn't change your view of the world a whole lot. It turns out they thought pretty much what you thought they thought, but which they didn't want to say publicly.

It is the same with the instant histories that have followed the end of 13 years of Labour government, some of the best of which include Andrew Rawnsley's The End of the Party (Penguin, £12.99); Steve Richards' Whatever it Takes (Fourth Estate, £14.99); Anthony Seldon and Guy Lodge's Brown at 10 (Biteback, £20); and Dennis Kavanagh and Philip Cowley's The British General Election of 2010 (Palgrave Macmillan, £22.99). Behind the scenes, it was sort of as we thought, only worse. But the real thrill, the frisson of ultra-contemporary history, is to hear it direct from the people who were so disciplined in their public utterances for so long. For these dispassionate accounts are accompanied by an unusually rich collection of memoirs.

Tony Blair's A Journey (Hutchinson, £25) is probably the most interesting of the lot, for its unexpected style and the insight into the interior life of the leader who dominated our politics for a decade. The main revelation about his personality is perhaps his anti-establishment impatience. He is impatient with the old establishment of the Tories, the civil service and the monarchy, with its respect for tradition and flummery. But he is also impatient with the new establishment for its right-on assumptions, on everything from freedom of information to respect for the "narrative" of Islamic grievance. The central political insight is his candour about how badly Gordon Brown behaved, and why he put up with it. In effect, he admits that his position in the Labour Party was so weak that sacking Brown would have provoked the party to rise up against him earlier than it did.

Peter Mandelson's The Third Man (HarperPress, £25) is also a surprise, partly because it is so well written. It is a believable account that hints at, but never explicitly states, the depth of the breach with Blair caused by his second sacking. Equally obscure is the psychology of Mandelson's relationship with Brown. The exiled European trade commissioner drops everything to go back to being chief adviser to his arch-enemy and former friend as if it were normal behaviour.

There is more than a touch of the Renaissance court about all this, which is why Jonathan Powell's choice of a peg on which to hang his recollections, The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World (Bodley Head, £20), is so apposite. Blair's chief of staff was also chief of Brown-hating in the Blair court and offers the most colourful picture of the rival entourage next door.

George W Bush's memoir, Decision Points (Virgin, £25), is self-consciously serious, and skates over the deep divisions in his administration. It confirms what we should have known: that he is not as stupid as he seems, but is therefore less interesting. Still, it contains some frankly bizarre footnotes (such as on a reading contest with his adviser Karl Rove, which was measured in square inches of text devoured), and an account of how the 14-year-old Bush killed his sister's goldfish by pouring vodka into the bowl.

As Chauncey the gardener said of reality in Being There, he might have said of the secrets revealed by these books, "This is just like television, only you can see much further." John Rentoul

John Rentoul is chief political commentator of 'The Independent on Sunday'