Anthony Blair’s dear old mater always said he was ‘good at making things up’.

As a new boy at St Stephen’s College, he learns the ropes from his dour Scottish study companion Brown. Popular and polite, he charms everyone including Matron Boothroyd and the school porter’s stepdaughter Cherie. Thanks to a tragic incident with a runaway horse and the help of his loyal toast fag Peter, he becomes captain of school.

Anthony mingles with the local aristocracy and survives an embarrassing day out foxhunting. There are dark encounters with Fenians and a suspected Russian anarchist. But triumph turns to disaster when a small boy called Kelly is found dead in the canal, and Blair and the Bible-quoting headmaster Dr Bush send the College Rifle Corps into the slum district of Mesopotamia.

The author of this brilliantly recreated Edwardian six-shilling novel with its strangely familiar cast of characters is a former political journalist at Westminster.

As Tony Blair prepares to leave Downing Street, this is the only book you will ever need to understand his rise and fall. The narrator is Peter Donaldson, known as the voice of BBC Radio 4 news for more than three decades.