A book on our political system by Ian Dunt
January 2024
Many of our Democracy Café debates concern parliament, Westminster and the political process generally with frequently a lament about why it’s so bad. We are now in election year and for the next n months, we are going to have speculation upon speculation about when it will be, and once the date is announced, we will have months spent on debating the various party’s promises and their manifestos. And promises there will be aplenty. How party A will fix the NHS and reduce waiting lists, how party B will solve the immigration and small boats crisis and party C will improve the nation’s productivity and get Britain growing again. The airwaves and our screens will be filled with endless interviews and silly stunts as politicians hug small children or are seen in various uniforms for a photo shoot before departing smartish. Oh and I nearly forgot, all of them will be reducing taxes.
Read Ian Dunt’s book* and you will realise how pointless it all is. How oceans of time is wasted on all this election rubbish when the reality is that the political system is in a mess – arguably a terminal mess – and there is precious little any politician can do to fix it. Indeed, as our economy has deteriorated, the opportunity to fix it has narrowed considerably.
In his book, Dunt takes us remorselessly through our political system bit by depressing bit to show that almost none of it works or is capable of doing what is needed. The book starts with the disaster of the probation service and the ‘reforms’ carried out by Chris Grayling. He rushed into a privatisation without a trial to see if it could work. He ignored advice. He realised that the public would be worried that serious offenders were to be handled by the private sector so he divided the service into two parts – public and private. The public part became overloaded and the private part lost money. It turned into a complete and expensive disaster and had to be undone. He should have been thrown out by his local electorate for his massive and unnecessary failure. But he was in a safe seat so first past the post saved him.
It starts with the selection of MPs. As Rory Stewart noted in his book, this is not done on the basis of management skill or experience, leadership ability or policy experience but rather on how a collection of local, and mostly elderly, party people think you’ll fit in, how likeable you are and your knowledge of the constituency. Having succeeded at that and arriving in parliament, you discover that you are almost a nonentity as an ordinary MP. Treated shoddily by the whips who even dictate what you’re maiden speech will be. As Isabel Hardman writes in her book Why We Get the Wrong Politicians, life as an MP can be lonely and stressful being either ignored or bullied. Away from home during the week and once back in their constituency, they have constituency business to attend to. For many, the only option is to be slavishly loyal, don’t ask awkward questions and hope to get on the ministerial gravy train. Much of the constituency business is nothing to do with the MP anyway and should be dealt with by a local councillor but they cannot refuse for fear of a backlash.
One of the surprises of the book is the House of Lords which he praises. Yes indeed, who would credit it. But he points out that the Lords has many highly experienced people able to inform policy making and legislation. Dunt points out that much legislation is shoved through parliament and MPs whipped to vote for it mostly without having read or understood what they’ve been told to do. The party system is not nearly as prevalent and there are many cross bench lords. It is the competence and expertise of the Lords which frequently proves crucial in ensuring legislation is capable of doing what a minister wants it to do.
He looks at the press which fails to deal with matters in depth and ministers who often have too cosy a relationship with people like the Murdochs and Paul Dacre. For example, Thatcher and Blair who even went half way round the world to fawn on Rupert Murdoch. The Leveson enquiry revealed how Murdoch came and went to No10 at will entering by the back door.
The Civil Service which has lost its way and has far too few people with statistical, organisational or project management experience. The churn of staff means the constant loss of experience as people are moved every two years or so. The churn of ministers is also criticised often moved after a year or two when it takes at least 18 months to get to grips with a ministry. The Treasury is vastly overrated and its pathological aversion to long-term investment a major cause of our problems.
So when we listen to one or other politician making claims about what they are going to do if they form a government, just remember that they will be attempting to run a machine that is a long way from being ‘well oiled’ and which has a high degree of dysfunctionality. That is quite apart from the parlous state of the economy and a decade of underinvestment in our social fabric.
Ah you might say, ‘Mrs Thatcher changed things’ and so she did. Remember though that the economy was in a vastly different place to where it is now. She was able to deliver some shocks to the economy and it did recover. An incoming government will not have that degree of leeway now.
The message of the book is that we have to undertake wholesale change to include how MPs are chosen and what their true role should be; reforming the civil service and the spad system which has grown up in the last few years; MPs to be properly resourced; changing the killing work schedule of ministers with their red boxes they have to plough through; curbing the Treasury’s powers and ending the silly budget process.
If I have a criticism of the book it is its relentless negativity. Despite the criticisms, there are the occasional MPs who achieve things and campaign successfully for a piece of legislation. Good laws do get onto the statute book, anti-slavery legislation for example. Although the civil service is very generalist, it does take someone who is non technical to ask the ‘idiot question’ sometimes to challenge the orthodoxy. Although the Treasury does have a lot to answer for it does challenge ministers who think the answer to all problems is to throw money at it.
It is nevertheless a good, if depressing read and a useful backdrop for the months of nonsense we will be subject to in this election year.
Peter Curbishley
*Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2023
Salisbury Democracy Alliance 