It depicts a socialist politician who betrays his early beliefs as he grows older, and was believed to be based upon the Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.
[2] The story chronicles the careers of three working-class boys (Hamer, Arnold and Tom) from Manchester and their descendants spanning the momentous years from 1877 to the onset of the Second World War.
[3] Hamer, whose youthful socialist zeal is soon converted to personal ambition, exploiting the Labour Party movement to become a Member of Parliament, marrying well and eventually entering the House of Lords.
Tome is the perky opportunist who progresses from rag-and-bone man to tycoon and a knighthood following his own self-help philosophy.
Their fortunes are intertwined in a vivid, often melodramatic tapestry of events involving friendships and betrayals, births, marriages and deaths.