How Westminster Works

In 1997 New Labour came to power. There was little freedom to start spending so they needed a big statement that would cost little. Throughout the 1990s the John Major government had used interest rates as a political tool. I made my first mortgage payment for several years on the day known as Black Wednesday in 1992 when interest rates briefly went up to 15%. New Labour, on about day three, gave the Bank of England the freedom to set interest rates independent of government. It changed public perception of politicians overnight and bought good will for their first two years in which spending was tight

I first encountered Ian Dunt's writing as a columnist in the ipaper. I was impressed by pithy articles that educated whilst questioning in areas of political life. It is proper journalism written in a style that never allowed the prose to interfere with the point.

The second Dunt is a rather sweary tweeter (now Xer) who gives full reign to his political anger with relatively good humour.

And the third is the author of this wonderful book. I had previously read his 2020 work How To Be a Liberal which is a guide to the development and growth of Liberal Democracy and the challenge of Populism. It was the sort of textbook, and he the sort of teacher, I wish I'd had at school. 

This latest book How Westminster Works has the sub-title ...and Why It Doesn't. In ten very readable chapters Ian Dunt takes the lid off the way our national life is supposed to be run. He analyses subjects such as MPs, government ministers, the Houses of Commons and Lords and the Civil Service. His conclusion is that most of the bits of government that are set up to work well have been so tweaked and abused that they are virtually useless to anyone except the executive (the PM's office). A Commons majority allows a dangerous amount of power. The one bit that should not work, an unelected second chamber, manages to do all the hard graft of refining legislation and discussing issues in a grown up way with the voices of experts listened to. In a final chapter called Solutions he revisits the question which has cropped up throughout - what should we do?

The prospect of a Labour Government with a huge majority in 2024 (or maybe2025) is growing. And so my opening question re-emerges. What might be the big political statement that costs little? I think Starmer and crew must get to grips with the ideas in this book. Because, make no mistake, many of them will take more than one electoral cycle. Labour might well have that in their grasp.

Of the things Dunt suggests a quick big statement might be to move out of Downing Street. It is obviously a useless place to work and, as he points out, a symbol of our country's desperate addiction to tradition.

Longer term I agree I would want a new administration to:

• Reform the House of Lords
• Fix the voting system
• Reward a Civil Servant for staying in the same department long-term and becoming an expert
• Move Parliament to a new, purpose-built chamber with a co-operative, rather than antagonistic, seating plan

Much of our national life has been deteriorating slowly over the last fourteen years. The triple whammy of Brexit, Covid and Ukraine  marked the point at which people noticed, because we got suddenly and obviously poorer. We need journalists like Dunt to keep working for us with analysis in depth, challenge where necessary and righteous anger that the people who should have put things right, didn't.

You should read this.