How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't - Ian Dunt, W&N (2024) & Politics on the Edge - Rory Stewart, Vintage (2024)
Lifting a lid on British politics, Ian Dunt’s book is in equal measure critical and unnerving. Apart from the House of Lords and special select committees, Dunt sees fatal flaws in every aspect of contemporary British government. The system, he argues, is not fit for purpose.
Three examples - which I’ve complemented with observations from Rory’s Stewart’s memoir Politics on the Edge - stand out.
First, the pathway to becoming an MP (sound campaigning skills) bears no connection with the demands of Westminster. Once elected, MPs are expected to be constituency caseworkers, deep probers of legislation, and effective media strategists all in one.
Stewart describes it thus, “mastering the details and intricacies of an individual bill took me at least 40 hours, and yet we were expected to vote many times a week.”
Dunt’s second major criticism is the speed of ministerial turnover. The frenetic pace of cabinet re-shuffles in recent decades has created a powerful incentive – it’s logical for ministers to try and do something quickly.
This is reflected in the volume of legislation processed through Parliament. There was an average of 1,645 pages per year in the 1980s and 2,804 in the 2000s – an increase of 70%. But eye-catching policy rarely serve long-term national interests.
The argument in favour of cabinet re-shuffles goes something like, ‘managers, unlike experts, do better as ministers. There is great value in looking at an old problem with a fresh pair of eyes.’
But as a junior minister, Stewart worked under Liz Truss and discovered that she prized “exaggerated simplicity,” and was “allergic to caution and detail”. He argues that top-level politicians are often superficial careerists, who actively undermine their own departments.
Finally, Dunt contends that first-past-the-post electoral systems hand winning parties total executive power, meaning they can pass whatever legislation (within reason) they wish. There is virtually no need for compromise with the opposition.
That’s also true within parties. For Stewart, “even the most rebellious MPs voted against [their own] government in perhaps 5 out of 100 votes. All of which rose certain questions about the theory that MPs were independent legislators, carefully scrutinising laws.”
In his book, Ian Dunt offers several solutions to stop the rot. He advocates for proportional representation, so that parties are represented in proportion to their national support. A fair translation of the vote would, in his view, result in more productive government.
Ministers, according to Dunt, should be put in charge of departments according to their experience and expertise. They should also be subject to select committee recalls after they’ve left their job, to overcome short-term policy making.
Finally, Dunt calls on a “rationalisation” of MP constituency duties, which inhibit lawmakers from scrutinising legislation properly. He would make greater use of local Ombudsman. He also calls for less legalese in legislation, so that MPs can understand what they’re reading.
In his account of Britain’s flailing political system, Stewart says, “governing should be about critical thinking; but the new style of politics is not. If critical thinking required humility, this politics demands absolute confidence: in place of accuracy, it offers vagueness.”
For now, Labour’s stonking majority has not been used to push through constitutional change – no electoral reform, no changes to the legislature or the judiciary, or to the devolution settlements. Don’t hold your breath for meaningful reform.
