Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7743 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-17
• Binding: Hardcover
• 390 pages

Iain Martin, Sunday Telegraph
'An extremely important book'

Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times
'Accusations of constitutional impropriety are supported with chapter and verse . . . Apocalyptic . . . Convincing'

Daily Mail
'Provocative and important . . . A devastating portrait of Britain's new ruling class'

Customer Reviews

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.

Easy-to-read rant by disillusioned journalist
I'm fascinated by politics and social groups, so I had no trouble finishing this book in about three sittings. For about ten years I took a close interest in the Conservative Party and I actually joined the Labour Party from 1995-1997. So this broad and encompassing perspective on our political class gave me loads to think about.

I found that when I was an adolescent, everything in the media and politics seemed real and true, then, when I experience these worlds as an adult, I found an awful lot of it was corrupt and untrue. But now I'm reaching 40 I see that reality and truth do exist, but getting to it is very personal, you frequently get it wrong, and it's very difficult to put it into neat packages.

This is a rather long preamble to say that Oborne has a rather romantic view of what politics, England and our institutions should be about. Rather like a hero in a Balzac novel, he's seen it up close, and it actually all seems to be run by dishonest, money-grubbing cabals.

But I have personal experiences which suggest to me that Oborne generalises too much. He says Ed Vaizey is part of the privileged political class, pampered by luxury offices and copious expenses. But I sat in Vaizey's office once. I looked at the enormous number of emails he was getting, the pile of invitations to tedious events, and the horrible pokiness of his room, which he had to share with a researcher, and I felt glad that I hadn't signed up for such a life.

Similarly, I was really impressed by New Labour when I joined them. They were well-organised, polite and effective. They hosted events in modern venues, they seemed to understand the problems that faced the country. When I went back to the Conservatives, they were stuck in the 1980s, arrogant, condescending and pompous. I've got to know many Conservative politicians, and a lot of them I think are bad-mannered, complacent and snobbish. People trying to sustain a backward and moribund organisation. However, I find Labour characters like Karen Buck and Oona King, pleasant, competent and easy to talk to.

Oborne laments the lack of deference shown by New Labour towards the monarchy. I tried really hard to stick up for the monarchy in 2002. I organised a Golden Jubilee Party in Westbourne Terrace in London, and learnt a lesson. Many of the well-to-do middle-class English people decided to go on a long break in Europe for the weekend. My party was attended by the lonely, the old, foreigners and the mad. I enjoyed it, but I realised the emotional attachment to the monarchy changed in the 1990s, and however ghastly Tony Blair might be, he understood that.

The things Oborne gets angry about are not all led by the new Political Class, they reflect the changing nature of society. Nobody is really bothered any more by arguments between the PM's office and Black Rod, or whether the Treasury or Downing Street is sensitive to Royal protocol, except angry men on the Spectator who haven't fulfilled their adolescent dreams.

Oborne's argument that the British Establishment of the 50s and 60s with its stiff-upper lip and notions of public service was some sort of Golden Age is just silly. It was a time when women had to stay in unhappy marriages and had to accept lower wages, the police were racist, schools turned a blind eye to sexual abuse and corporal punishment, there was incredible hypocrisy over homosexuality, politicians like Reggie Maudling were extremely corrupt and everyone tugged their forelock to their elders and betters.

At one point Oborne draws pschoanalysis into his general rant about everything that has gone wrong with society. He says R.D Laing "lifted the responsibility for psychological problems off the shoulders of the individual and attributed it instead to the malign effect of the family and society." Well, I don't think Oborne has read enough about these things. I recommend The Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman Dixon. It explains, using the insights of psychoanalysis, how institutions fail, but sometimes succeed, too. The Political Class can be as cavalier as it likes, but their actions will eventually have consequences, which will impact upon the lives of millions of people. And if they are bad, that Class will eventually perish.

If Oborne were to read Games People Play by Eric Berne, he might get a sense that his book is about playing the game, 'Nowadays'. The purpose of the game is to suggest that things aren't what they used to be. It's a time-wasting pastime played by parents, the old and young fogies.

This book is like a good long article in a Sunday newspaper, fun to read, thought-provoking and shocking in parts. But dropped in the bin and forgotten about by Wednesday.

A brilliant analysis
This is one of the best political books I've ever read. I was sceptical at first because I'm no fan of the Daily Mail, but Oborne won me over within a few pages. He writes with clarity and makes the subject both enjoyable and blood boiling at the same time.
I'm hospital consultant and can see parallels with how the political class are disempowering the medical profession in the same way as the other professions that he mentions in the book. The mechanisms and reasons are the same i.e empower a few apparatchiks (e.g Lord Darzi, the CMO) and disempower the rest (deprofessionalisation and loss of self regulation) with the overarching goal of enriching the private sector helath organisations in order to be handed plum jobs later on (e.g Patrica Hewitt now works as an advisor for Boots and Simon Stephens (former health advisor to Blair) is now CEO of United Healthcare Europe). Maybe, Peter Oborne can add a chapter on the "Attack on the medical profession" in the next edition!