How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't

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Promotion and pay should be determined by skill and churn minimized, controlled by accountable permanent secretaries. Westminster must operate more slowly, planning longer-term, rushing through less unnecessary, poorly thought-out legislation. The Prime Minister does not just benefit from having weak backbenchers, it wants only supine and ignorants MPs. What follows is a series of detailed chapters each devoted to a key component of the political system. This has led to what Dunt describes as an “irrational,” unfair tax structure which facilitates tax avoidance, as the IFS has pointed out.

Media in Westminster is dysfunctional due to a fall in advertising revenue and the own agendas of the publishers.Some of his criticisms are a little harsh, particularly on civil service expertise, but he poses solid alternatives and fixes alongside his analysis and there are really shocking exposés in here on the lack of real checks on the legislative process. It provides exactly what people in power have always tried to avoid: a description of the mechanisms of government which can be understood by anyone. It achieved some improvements before being replaced by the less effective Civil Service Learning Programme by the Conservative-led coalition government in 2011.

He sought no expert advice and ignored it when it was offered in response to a Ministry “consultation” on the issue, preferring to listen to costly, less expert, private sector consultants. There's a lot that is valuable here: the identification of misaligned incentives, the descriptions of Westminster procedure, highlighting the positive role of select committees and, more surprisingly, the Lords. How Westminster Works reveals the rot beneath the veneer of our much venerated parliament and organs of state.Dunt describes how selection is made “behind closed doors” by party members, who have become steadily less representative of the wider population as party membership has shrunk from a peak in the 1950s, especially since the 1990s. Turnover has increased, faster than in the many countries where reshuffles require coalition agreement. Most civil servants were graduates in humanities and lacked knowledge of economics, engineering, sciences, and other fields judged essential to achieve modernization. Also, New Labour established a Rough Sleeper Unit of experts tasked to reduce rough sleeping, as they did.