It started when a chance encounter with Sadiq Khan’s Labrador landed Herbie a job working as a special advisor to Ed Miliband in 2014. Then he was summoned by David Cameron to work on the Remain campaign in the EU referendum. He experienced the pain of working with Theresa May; was sacked and then rehired by Boris Johnson to advise on Covid; was at Balmoral when the Queen died; had a ringside seat for Liz Truss; was fired by Rishi Sunak and then latterly taken on by Keir Starmer. This is the story the politicians didn’t want you to know. What are Larry the Cat and Dilyn the Dog really like? How did Charlotte Owen get a peerage? Herbert Hound, finally, tells all. JOHN CRACE has been the Guardian’s political sketch writer for the last ten years and is one of the paper’s most loved columnists. He has also written about twenty books on everything from cricket, football, TV, literature, politics and – not forgetting – himself. The most recent, Depraved New World, a collection of his Guardian columns, was published in November 2023 and was a Waterstones Politics Book of the Year. In January 2024 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Bath Spa University in recognition of his literary satire.