Product Description

This is the dramatic and shocking story of the long, hard-won battle for the vote, and then of the slow erosion of its power. In a vast narrative sweep that takes us from the English Civil War to the present day, Foot traces the struggle for universal suffrage, and shows how concern for property first delayed and then fatally hobbled the movement towards parliamentary democracy. Both authoritative history and rousing polemic, this is a must-read for anyone interested in how today's political scene was shaped.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #468281 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 505 pages

Nick Cohen, Evening Standard
‘A marvellous book … a pleasure to read’

Francis Wheen, Guardian
‘Passionate, energetic and invincibly cheerful: the qualities of his final book are also a monument to the man himself’

Roy Hattersley, Scotland on Sunday
‘A work of true scholarship … brilliant … always irresistibly readable’

Customer Reviews

A Superb Lament for the Failure of our Democractic Process
A magnificent work that should be required reading for everyone who cares about political democracy in this country – I couldn’t put it down, and I’m not a “far-lefty”, as the previous reviewer puts it, by any means. The first half of the book is an exhaustive history of the struggle for universal suffrage, from the Levellers of the Seventeenth Century to the 1918 Representation of the People Act. The second half charts the way that the wealthy “ruling classes”, who fought tooth-and-nail for centuries to prevent anyone but themselves taking part in the political process, have since 1918 used their wealth and power to sideline the elected government and make it impossible for those elected by the people to change the status quo.
I totally disagree with the previous reviewer that Foot has nothing positive to say about any of the Labour administrations that the UK has had – on the contrary, he carefully charts the good intentions of all Labour governments (with the exception of those led by Tony Blair) and gives ample praise where it is due. What he shows however is that the good intentions of successive Labour administrations between 1924 and 1979 have been thwarted by the “money men”, unelected officials of financial institutions like the stock exchange and the World Bank who have effectively held Labour governments to ransom and more or less blackmailed them into adopting capitalist policies. The inevitable conclusion of this situation is that in order to govern effectively, the Labour Party has had to transform itself into a political party acceptable to big business and the financial institutions - or in other words, to become Tory in all but name. Foot’s conclusion then is that the struggle for universal suffrage has been in vain, because a change in the elected government can produce no radical change in policies and the real power remains exactly where it was when the whole process began in the seventeenth century – with those who have wealth and property. His overarching theme echoes that of the left-wing historian R H Tawney, who argued that it is impossible to have political democracy without economic democracy. The latter, according to Foot’s analysis, can never come through the ballot box but must be won by popular agitation and possibly, ultimately, through revolution.
Yes, Paul Foot was on the extreme left of British politics: He has an agenda in The Vote, the work is tendentious, and he does tend to skip over or ignore historical events that do not sit well with his overall theme. (For example, he blames the problems of the Heath government entirely upon Trade Union agitation and manages to avoid mentioning the Arab-Israeli war of October 1973 and the consequent oil embargo against western nations). However, since the bookshelves of Britain are groaning under the weight of right-wing political histories of the British political process, this book provides some timely and much-needed balance. Read it and weep.

A fundamental book about a fundamental right
This is a clear, informative and easily readable book about the history of the vote in the UK, starting with the famous Putney debates, describing the winding and blood-spattered road to universal suffrage and ending with contemporary (and overall successful) attempts to make universal suffrage irrelevant. Foot's main thesis is that capitalism is intrinsically undemocratic, and he manages to prove it quite brilliantly by showing that almost all actions undertaken to resist and later to undermine universal suffrage aimed at protecting the propertied few from the dispossessed multitude.

Do you bother to vote anymore?
I don't. Why? I came to the conclusion that voting in elections doesn't really change anything. This isn't a negative. It's a positive. It's an acknowledgement that power, real power, lies outside of the control of the politicians we elect.

It's with regret that I don't bother voting. Why? Because we have the right to vote only because people struggled for centuries to win that right and I feel that I am betraying that long struggle for democracy.

This dilemma is what Paul Foot's 'The Vote' is all about. If this dilemma concerns you, then you should read this book.

It traces the struggle for democracy in Britain from the time of the English Civil War, from the debates between the Levellers and the Cromwellian grandees - the latter believed that giving the lower orders the vote would mean that they, the rich and powerful, would lose their wealth and power.

And, so, on we go, to the campaigns in the nineteenth century for the extension of the franchise by the Chartists who saw the vote as a means to change society in the interests of the majority working class. As with two hundred years previously, the rich and powerful resisted and reforms came gradually, reluctantly and only with pressure from below.

On to the twentieth century and the campaign for women's suffrage. Again, similar arguments were marshalled for why women should be denied the vote as to why the propertyless male should have been denied the vote - a threat to the established order.

And so to the second part of 'The Vote'. What has happened now that we can all, well those of us over 18 years of age at least, vote? Foot catalogues the story of the Labour governments and their long history of failure to bring about the transformation of British society in the interests of the majority. There are many examples as to what, how and why they failed. One example will suffice here: Harold Wilson, elected prime minister, informed by Lord Cromer, unelected governor of the Bank of England, that his policies should be dropped. They were. Political democracy without economic democracy is unable to effect the transformation of society because power, real power, lies outside parliament with people who are not elected. Not that Foot has a complete downer on all Labour's achievements, he doesn't. But the point is, that parliamentary democracy is easy to undermine for those with economic power. This is why the most ardent supporters of parliamentary democracy hail from the political tradition of those who did the most to oppose it's introduction - the wealthy have sussed that it doesn't really threaten them too much.

Don't think that Foot is just engaged in a Leftie rant here, he's not. As with his much missed journalism and speaking, his history is forensically researched. It is also beautifully written, full of wit and humour and hilarious asides and anecdotes.

Thoroughly good read.