A clear description of the problems with a complex establishment
5 stars
A well-written, clear and readable look at all the elements that make up our government in Westminster, explaining how they're set up and what the problems are. You'll learn a lot about them, and maybe even change how you think of some of them.
It's rather depressing, and in places even frightening. If you've been feeling like things are f-d, this will confirm it and tell you why they're f-d.
Despite all that, the final chapter puts forward a range of pragmatic suggestions that could improve it all -- if we collectively are persuaded they're important enough to ask for.
A Well Written, Readable and Informative Book, But Also Rather Crushingly Depressing
5 stars
Ian Dunt's "How Westminster Works … and Why It Doesn't" lives up to both parts of its title. Through the main chapters of the book he systematically explains how each part of the overall system operates, from choosing who stands in each constituency in a general election through to the role of the House of Lords in shaping legislation taking in all aspects of government along the way including the Civil Service. And for each part he details how the system as it exists incentivises counterproductive behaviour and outcomes. Sometimes deliberately (like how the time given for scrutiny of bills in the House of Commons is curtailed so that MPs have little chance to do anything other than vote how the whips tell them) and sometimes accidentally (like how there is no way to reward a civil servant who builds up expertise in a particular area, as in order to …
Ian Dunt's "How Westminster Works … and Why It Doesn't" lives up to both parts of its title. Through the main chapters of the book he systematically explains how each part of the overall system operates, from choosing who stands in each constituency in a general election through to the role of the House of Lords in shaping legislation taking in all aspects of government along the way including the Civil Service. And for each part he details how the system as it exists incentivises counterproductive behaviour and outcomes. Sometimes deliberately (like how the time given for scrutiny of bills in the House of Commons is curtailed so that MPs have little chance to do anything other than vote how the whips tell them) and sometimes accidentally (like how there is no way to reward a civil servant who builds up expertise in a particular area, as in order to get a pay rise or move on in their career they need to move to a different role so their expertise is lost to the system – which reminds me a lot of my time in academia which also didn't value continuity or institutional memory).
There are also two interludes that illustrate his points with case studies, one at the beginning which details the changes to the Probation Service under Grayling which took a functional system & broke it, and one half way through that looks at the disastrous failure to evacuate people from Afghanistan when the Taliban took it back in 2021.
The final chapter is an epilogue which offers suggested solutions to these systemic problems, all of which feel feasible and in some cases have even been tried before & been successful. This is in one sense hopeful, and I think that was Dunt's intent – to end on a high note – but I found it more depressing. There are so many simple things that could make the governance of our country better and more effective, but there are no incentives for those who take power in the current system to change it. The only hope really is that change always seems impossible till it happens.
Overall the book was well written & engaging, and an easy read. I also liked the structure of the bibliography which is not just a list of books but a piece of prose which talks about which books are relevant to which sections of this book as well as giving page references. Despite ending up with a bit of a sense of despair (it's broken, they know it and some of them even like it that way) I am glad I read this and would recommend it.
