Iron Lady’s pages are for turning: Loyal Tories make Margaret Thatcher’s life story their top choice of summer reading

The hefty biography of former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, written by the ex-Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore, may not seem the obvious pick for most people to while away hours on the beach with. But a poll of MPs by ComRes found that it was the Conservatives’ favourite to pack away.

It was followed by another serious-minded tome – a biography of the political philosopher Edmund Burke written by the Tory MP Jesse Norman.

Labour MPs were equally partisan, making the former Home Secretary Alan Johnson’s childhood memoir, This Boy, their No 1 choice.

Second place went to the work of another former Labour minister – Lord Adonis’s account of the formation of the coalition, 5 Days in May.

Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, were seeking to burnish their “green” credentials, choosing Tony Juniper’s What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?