 Author Derek Jewell, writing in 1967, called it "a bitter study of political life".Geoffrey Wheatcroft in "The Observer" in 2001 saw "No Love for Johnnie" as the archetype novel of a genre that he names "the Labour Party novel of disillusionment".Paul Routledge in the "New Statesman" in 2000 described the novel as being highly prescient of the New Labour movement.