- Hardcover: 528 pages
- Publisher: Viking (24 Feb 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 067091536X
- ISBN-13: 978-0670915361
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15 x 4.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 110,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Francis Wheen, Guardian
‘Passionate, energetic and invincibly cheerful: the qualities of his final book are also a monument to the man himself’
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.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
This book was commissioned in 1990, while I was a journalist on the Daily Mirror. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
This book was commissioned in 1990, while I was a journalist on the Daily Mirror. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Easy to read ,well researched history of how we won the vote and how we have ended up in the current sad state . Paul is much missed but his legacy is this book. Buy it ,read it.It is all you need to know about Bristish political history.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Only one thing missing
This is an excellent read, brilliantly written and containing much pertinent insight, devastating analyses, with some witty and bitter irony that Marx would have been proud of. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Astrocol
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. Read more
Published on 2 May 2008 by Germinal
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