Steve Howell is a journalist, author and former communications consultant. He has appeared as a political commentator on the BBC, ITV, LBC, Sky News and various podcasts and has contributed features and opinion pieces to publications such as The Nation, Big Issue, and The Guardian.

His latest book – Cold War Puerto Rico - examines the dissonance between American democratic rhetoric and the imperial reality of Washington’s dealings with its Caribbean colony. Focusing on the period from the 1945 to 1970, it shows how the US gave the island the appearance of autonomy while using repressive measures, orchestrated by the FBI, to silence activists and political parties pushing for full independence.

“An engaging and important historical contribution,” Sandy Plácido, Rutgers-Newark.

Cold War Puerto Rico will be published by the University of Massachusetts Press on May 1, 2026, but it can already be pre-ordered online through major retailers. The publisher’s price for the paperback is $34.95 but pre-orders via this website are at a special offer price of £20 including postage (UK only) – see below.

Steve is also the author of Game Changer: Eight Weeks That Transformed British Politics, an insider’s account of one of the most dramatic elections of modern times. In 2017, when Theresa May unexpectedly called a general election, most commentators thought she would win by a landslide. But, over a tense and turbulent eight weeks, Labour closed the gap to deny May a majority with the largest increase in Labour’s vote share since 1945. Selected as a Guardian political book of the year in 2018, the print version is hard to come by but Game Changer is still available on Kindle.

‘If you want to get the inside account of Labour’s historic general election campaign, I couldn’t recommend more former Corbyn staffer Steve Howell’s Game Changer,’ Owen Jones, Chavs author and Guardian columnist.

Steve’s first novel Over The Line, published in 2015, is the story of an Olympic poster girl who comes under suspicion because of her links to the steroid-fuelled death of a childhood friend. The media declare her guilty by association. The dead boy’s mother thinks she’s hiding something.

‘With each passing month, the themes in Over The Line become more relevant,’ Sean Ingle, The Guardian.

‘The heroine of British athletics, tainted by doping and death. Couldn't happen? Read Over The Line and decide. Absorbing,’ Michael Calvin, author and former Independent on Sunday columnist.

Steve published a second novel in 2021. Collateral Damage tells the story of a Lebanese-Palestinian woman’s battle to discover the truth about the death of her British partner, a journalist and peace activist. Set in 1987, it follows Ayesha Khoury as she tries get to the bottom of how and why her lover, Tom Carver, died on a beach in Tripoli while attending a peace conference to mark the first anniversary of US air strikes against Libya. The Libyan authorities decide Tom’s death was an accident and his family, aided by the Foreign Office, exclude Ayesha from the official inquiries. But Ayesha won’t be deterred and enlists the help of fellow activist Hannah Kennedy and her solicitor friend, Jed McIntosh, to search for the truth – putting their own lives at risk and revealing a shocking abuse of power.

"It’s brilliant, a very good book. I do recommend it,” Jeremy Corbyn.

Please note: All Steve’s books are available internationally through the usual commercial channels. Orders for paperbacks using the PayPal facility on this website are for the UK only.