Matthew Parris

'Charles Dickens's Steerforth meets Enid Blyton's Julian half way -- about 1910 -- and the product bears an uncanny resemblance to someone we all know. Columnists may rage and psychobiographers babble, but in one neat, beguiling and funny little satire, John Morrison has said it all.' -- Matthew Parris 

Beryl Bainbridge in The Oldie June 2006

This is a novel in the spirited tradition of the golden age of boy's fiction, in which bullies and cheats always get their just rewards and good triumphs over bad...'An Old Boy' is the alias of John Morrison, former foreign correspondent, and Westminster correspondent for Reuters. This is a spiffing yarn with brilliant illustrations by David Alan Hopkins.

Jonathan Sale in The Independent

Morrison doesn't just go for the obvious gags...(His) task was to keep the pastiche in motion for a 250-page book that worked as a story as well as a political joke...He has pulled it off. Book collectors of the future may, missing the politics, be fooled into thinking this is the real Edwardian thing. This is not Billy Bunter and it is not played totally for laughs. The mood becomes darker as the story progresses - just like the tale of the real Tony. It's a squib, but it goes off with a loud bang.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/article322406.ece

Paul Edmund Norman in Gateway Monthly

Staggeringly brilliant - lovers of school stories will revere it for its devotion to the genre, whilst political observers will find their opinion of Blair reinforced and confirmed. The story darkens as it progresses, just as Tony Blair's own life does. Lifts the lid on New Labour's principal architect in a carefully constructed, beautifully told tale at which no-one could take offence, yet it hits home with real truth about a man corrupted absolutely by politics and ambition. This is one of the funniest and, at the same time, darkest satires I've read in a very long time.

http://www.gatewaymonthly.com/65blair.html

Euan Hirst, politics bookseller at Blackwells Bookshop, Oxford

A rip-roaring adventure novel, beautifully illustrated and with a cast of characters that are gnawingly familiar. Whilst it is laugh-out-loud in places, there are some of the most wonderful darkly satirical passages that will make you think. Inventive, informed and memorable.

http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/bobuk_editorial/ongoing_features/choice/Politics_Experts.jsp

European Tribune

It's wonderfully illustrated with Edwardian-style drawings by David Alan Hopkins, it's howlingly funny - with an underlying note of seriousness. And, by the time you've read Anthony Blair Captain of School, you'll have gained a little more insight into who the little chappie is.

http://www2.eurotrib.com/story/2005/12/2/151715/272

Book World

I can say that John and his team have done a great production job. The physical book is a neat hardback with an illustration on the front rather than a dust jacket and some lovely illustrations.  The paper is good quality, the typesetting entirely professional and at £9.99 it is good value.  I noticed several people on the train having a good stare at the cover.

http://bookworld.typepad.com/book_world/2006/02/self_publishing.html

Urban Fox, Times Online Correspondent

Anthony Blair Captain of School tells a story of English public school life circa 1910. But it's a story that will be strangely familiar to every follower of the modern Westminster political scene. A page or two will be enough to have you swearing you can hear the yelped 'Yaroos!' emanating from Number 10 Downing Street.  Get to the end and you'll know exactly what book our Prime Minister will be begging not to be given for Christmas.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18389-1794315,00.html

Atticus in The Sunday Times

John Morrison, author of the ripping yarn, will be visiting Brighton with a once-in-a-lifetime special offer. 'I'm offering ministers a free brown paper bag,' he said, 'so they can read the book without fear of losing their jobs.'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1785441_2,00.html

Pauline Reynolds in Sunday Life, Belfast

Take a few blokes called Blair, Adams and McGuinness, a handful of missing rifles and a toast to the 'Republican Brotherhood'. Combine this with a rendition of the Wearing of the Green and a visit to Ma Mowlam's dodgy boathouse, and you begin to feel the sense of a new book about to be published.

http://www.sundaylife.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=662051

The Independent on Sunday

The Prime Minister and his chums have fallen victim to a merciless new satire that transports him from the comfy sofas of Downing Street to the gloomy corridors of an Edwardian boarding institution.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/news/article310180.ece

lovereading.com

Try to imagine if Lord Baden Powell (author of 'Adventuring to Manhood') worked with Enid Blyton (The Famous Five) to write a book set in a fictional school that looks alarmingly like the Houses of Parliament. Suspend disbelief, crack open lashings of ginger beer and settle down to follow the rise and demise of 'Anthony Blair - Captain of School.'

http://www.lovereading.co.uk/book/813

Guardian Unlimited's Political Correspondent Matthew Tempest

A new book from the former Reuters' Westminster bureau chief John Morrison stands out for variety, if nothing else: a novel, reimagining Blair and his Cabinet cohorts as Edwardian schoolboys.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2005/08/02/schoolboy_blair.html

The New Statesman's columnist Kevin Maguire

Conmen, topless models, Aztec rebirthing pyramids and missing weapons of mass destruction have raised the bar for satirists, but that old Reuters hand John Morrison has a jolly good go in Anthony Blair Captain of School.

http://www.newstatesman.com/Politics/200509120017