Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

Wreckers or Builders: A History of Labour MEPs 1979-1999 by Anita Pollack
John Harper, £20

The European Parliamentary Labour Party has been a microcosm of the wider Labour movement over the past 30 years with all its successes and failures. Here Anita Pollack, herself a former MEP (1989-99), tells the story of the first 20 years. With direct elections in 1979 the sequence was 17, 32, 45, 62 and 29 as the EPLP rowed the higher and higher tides of Tory mid-term unpopularity before being stranded by the consequences of victory. Since then, things can only get better; with 19 and 13 MEPs in 2004 and 2009 respectively. Without proportional representation, introduced for the 1999 elections, the number of Labour MEPs could have been counted on the fingers of one hand (with a couple of fingers to spare).

The Girlfriend Experience
Director: Steven Soderbergh

With The Girlfriend Experience, director Steven Soderbergh has the distinction, not achieved since the ripe years of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, of having four films released in one year. Admittedly, Che Part One and Che Part Two still appear to me to be one movie, but let’s not take the statistic away from him.

Neville Chamberlain by Nick Smart
Routledge Historical Biographies, £14.99

It is unlikely that the reputation of any British prime minister is so totally beyond repair as Neville Chamberlain’s. He is forever associated with appeasement and the conceited belief that he could persuade Adolf Hitler to pursue peace. It was also his ill-luck that the comparison was always bound to be made between his discredited, disappointed premiership and that of the war time administration of Winston Churchill that followed.

Kienholz: the Hoerengracht
National Gallery, London

Amsterdam’s red light district – the Hoerengracht – may not seem to be the most appropriate subject for an exhibition in the stately rooms of the National Gallery, but the American artists Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz have recreated the narrow, tawdry streets and claustrophobic atmosphere of this notorious area. Yet, as the gallery is keen to make clear, the artist’s concern with the sex trade is, in fact, part of a continuing interest by artists with prostitution and the rituals of the “oldest profession”.

The House That Jazz Built
Radio 4

Classic Serial: The Complete Smiley – The Karla Trilogy – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Soho is 50 years old and, in The House That Jazz Built, Paul Merton, in a jaunty and sometimes intrusive have I got blues for you commentary, told the story of how British jazz enthusiasts were seduced and excited by post-war American music from the likes of Charlie “Bird” Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie.

My Paper Chase by Harold Evans
Little Brown, £25

Harry Evans’ book is a remarkably evocative portrait of an eventful era in British history, painted with insight and candour – but without rancour. With self-deprecatory humour and affection, his anecdotes of life in journalism illuminate the changes that were taking place in society, in part spurred on by people like him.

Detaining Justice
Tricycle Theatre, London

The plight of asylum seekers is no laughing matter, but that doesn’t mean dramas about the subject have to be worthy or dull. In fact, young playwright Bola Agbaje’s Detaining Justice, which opened recently, is an exemplary mix of laughter and tears. As the final part of the Tricycle Theatre’s trilogy examining the state of the nation at the end of the new millennium’s first decade, this play confirms the feeling that much of the energy in new writing is coming from black writers.

Neil Young looks at the highlights of this year’s Ljubljana International Film Festival