Let's See What Happens

The Last Mayor of Bristol
A gripping, insightful and moving memoir from Marvin Rees, the first mayor of Black African heritage to lead a European city.

‘A brutally honest account of power, politics, race and class, written by a politician with a remarkable backstory and destined for bigger things’ - David Olusoga, author of Black and British

In 2016, Marvin Rees was elected as mayor of Bristol, the first time a major European city had elected a mayor of Black African heritage. Re-elected in 2021, his eight-year tenure has taken the city through everything from Brexit to Covid, the cost of living crisis to the fall of the Colston statue. With the eyes of the world on Bristol, Rees navigated a high-stakes balancing act to keep the city together – all the while dealing with racist abuse and personal threats.

His rise to political leadership was anything but straightforward. The mixed-race son of a Jamaican father and white single mother, he grew up in a household where money was tight and opportunity lacking. He first found purpose in the boxing ring, then, while at university studying history and politics, he passed the interview board for the Royal Marines, but failed the medical. Instead of the armed forces, he joined an international development agency, before becoming a broadcast journalist at the BBC. However, politics beckoned and, after winning a place at Yale’s prestigious World Fellows Program for rising global leaders, he was selected as the Labour Party candidate for Bristol’s first mayoral election in 2012. And lost.

Let's See What Happens chronicles Marvin Rees’s fall and rise to political success – and how the failures along the way ultimately proved a blessing in what he learned about life. He describes both the challenges and opportunities he faced as a man and as mayor, helping his home city grow to national and international prominence.

Thoughtful, straight-talking, passionate, this is the fascinating memoir of one of the most charismatic leaders in British politics today.