September 2, 2023

Ian Dunt and the limitations of being right

The journalist and podcaster has produced a brilliant analysis of the shortcomings in the Westminster machine- but will it make a difference?

Let me get the admiration out of the way first: Ian Dunt has written a superb account of why the UK government makes so many bad decisions, about the wrong things, at the wrong time. His knowledge of the subject is second-to-none, and the clarity of his prose is exemplary. And the whole thing is animated by a passion for good sense and fairness, shot through the book and most obvious in the audio version, which Dunt himself narrates.

If anyone wants to understand why we as a nation are failing, this is an excellent starting point. It takes the reader through all the aspects of the political machine, from MP selection to political journalism, and dissects the perverse incentives, pointless procedures and conflicts of interest that erode the quality of decision-making in SW1.

I cannot disagree with any of Dunt’s conclusions- partly because I am infinitely less well-informed than him, and partly because the arguments and examples are compelling in their own right. But whether he is right isn’t what I am interested in writing about- what interests me about this book is the question of whether it will make a difference.

Two books in one?

In a sense, this is two books sharing the same pages. One is an analysis of the weaknesses, whatever party is in power, of the political mechanisms of the UK. The other is an account of how the current Conservative government, particularly since the premiership of Boris Johnson, has exploited these weaknesses in increasingly craven and corrupt ways. In a sense, the two books need each other- the first would be a bit dry, even for politics groupies like me, without the outrageous exploits of Johnson and co. And there is plenty of ‘aren’t the Tories awful’ media out there, so the second wouldn’t be anything remarkable on its own.

The problem is, once this bunch of chancers and mountebacks have been turfed out, books like this, written at the height of their opportunism, might be seen to have served their purpose. Which would be a shame, because to me the most important take-home from Dunt’s book is that even a competent, honest government would struggle to produce reliably sound decisions, given the apparatus of government available to them.

So the question is, what are the chances of meaningful reform after a change of government, and is this the book best equipped to increase them?

Fixing the decision factory

Leaving aside the implicit demand for the removal of people like Dominic Raab from anywhere resembling power, the book acts, in my view, as a manual for improving the quality of decision making in Westminster. Good decisions are not the same as right decisions- a decision can be right or wrong by accident or luck. What Dunt is aiming for, as far as I can see, is a rational process by which priorities follow that of the electorate, options are generated by experts, decided on by ministers who are in stable positions and understand their brief, voted on by MPs who have enough time to understand the implications for their constituents, and scrutinised by independent experts in the second chamber. This is not an argument for any particular political ideology, but for improving the efficiency of the ‘decision factory’ within government. This technocratic aspiration is both a considerable strength of the book in terms of its intellectual rigour, and a weakness when it comes to assessing its chances of lasting impact.

Where’s the hook, Ian?

When I think about the really influential popular politics books of the last 40 years- those perhaps written by specialists but sufficiently popular for their influence to reach back into the political establishment, they all seem to have two things in common.

They all (Nudge, The End of History, The Clash of Civilisations) have a simple prescription that could fit, at worst, on a paperback blurb. They boil down complexity into a few simple points and then try to cram reality into whatever schema they want it to fit into. Which brings us to the other thing all these books have in common: they are all, at least to some extent, bullshit.1

How Westminster Works is devoid of bullshit- a rejection of bullshit is pretty much the defining feature of Dunt’s entire output, from newspaper column to podcast. His prescription for Westminster (open selection for MPs, centralising and professionalising special advisors, reforming the report stage of legislation) can’t be boiled down to a couple of bullet points or a ‘neat trick’. They are arrived at by deep knowledge of the processes and consideration of the incentives and constraints involved. I may be wrong, but I think that is one reason why they may not be picked up.

Rabble unrousing

A few reviewers2 have remarked on finding the tone of the book less than engaging. While I disagree, I can see what they mean- Dunt engages the brain, not the heart. There is a deep concern for humanity implicit in his writing, but he never goes anywhere near emotive sentiment. For rationalists like me, that is a considerable plus point. But I can see why, for other people who want to be swept away by a vision of the future, Dunt falls short for them. It is hard to imagine anyone chanting ‘electronic voting at the report stage’ at any picket line or barricade, after all.

But I think there is a somewhat deeper point here. What Dunt doesn’t reckon with in this book is the fact that politics is fundamentally irrational. Partly in that it results in irrational decisions like Brexit, but also that it involves deep passions about belonging, tradition and tribalism. He is of course aware of these currents, but offers little in the way of guidance for any campaigners for the kind of change he advocates.

I do wonder whether this is partly because Dunt is a bit ambivalent about democracy.

The foolishness of the commons

Ian Dunt is an enthusiast for electoral reform, on the basis that it would improve representation and therefore force MPs to speak on behalf of more of their public. He’s also an admirer of the House of Lords, and is unenthusiastic about its conversion into a second elected chamber.3 I point this out not as some kind of gotcha; I just think that for Dunt, I think democracy is not and end in itself, but another means of improving the quality of decision-making. I don’t think he’s wrong- we all like to think of ourselves as democracy stans until someone suggests a referendum on the death penalty. But I think his ambivalence about democracy is the final reason this book may end up as a fascinating political footnote.

If this book could be rewritten with a better ‘hook’, without swerving too far into bullshit, I think direct democracy and accountability might have been that hook. Ultimately, the reason the problems he identifies are problems is that they allow politicians to act in ways that suit them, or their parties, but are to the detriment of the population as a whole.

Letting public scrunity and greater democratic accountability into these processes is an obvious way to start the process of reform. It would inevitably lead unexpected results and setbacks. The population, as evidenced by the rejection of AV in 2011, are as yet unconvinced about electoral reform. Advocating democratisation across the board would have made some of Dunt’s suggestions jarring and may have led to a very different book. That book may even have been less intellectually satisfying that this one. But I wonder if it might just have been more effective.

Westminster endures

I am very aware of the irony of a Substack with a handful of subscribers criticising a prominent broadcaster for being not quite populist enough. So I want to emphasise: this book is fascinating. The chapter on the evacuation of Kabul is the most coldly angry audiobook reading I have ever heard. I think it should be required reading for anyone interested in UK government. It is the best account we have of what we need to do to fix it.

I just want him to tell us how next.