2008-05-23 An excellent book, with a few gaps

I want to second pretty much everything that most of the other reviewers, especially Henry Berocca in an excellent review, have said. I have a few additional points and some quibbles:

Oborne should perhaps have written more about the role of the European Union in the motivation of this class of political leaders. It is an astonishing fact, when you think about it, that this political class craves power and yet has chosen to transfer a lot of political authority to Brussels. Why is that? It would be good for Oborne to have perhaps asked more about that. I personally think that many, if not all, of the pro-EU types are careerists who hope to jump on board the gravy train, although some may idealistically believe that we should create a federal EU state and naively expect that such a state will be democratically accountable.

Oborne also denounces the role of the media and he is right to do so. But I should point out - hardly surprising on an internet site like this - that the internet and new media are providing a necessary corrective to the craven approach adopted by the tabloids, broadsheets, the BBC and ITV. Blogs now play a role in flagging up issues that the mainstream press are too cowardly to confront. Take the blogger "Guido Fawkes", who has exposed all types of government wrongdoing, such as the cash-for-peerages affair and other scandals. The role of the internet should not be understimated.

More broadly, though, I fear that Oborne does not sufficiently realise that the rise of a political class, or new establishment, is very difficult to resist when the government grabs almost half of the national income and regulates the rest of society so heavily. Merely re-establishing some old rules and procedures such as informing parliament first before a change in policy is just tinkering. At root, the problem is not just a class of venal, self serving politicians and their toadies in MI5 or the press, the problem is an addiction by so many people to Big Government generally. To reverse that is the biggest issue of the lot.

But these are quibbles. Oborne's book is great and it is hardly surprising that the vast majority of the reviews here are positive. It is one of the most important books on UK politics written for many years.