Who Runs This Place?: The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century [Paperback]

Sampson's goal was ambitious - to draw a map of the institutions that really mattered in Britain and trace the threads of influence and power that flowed between them, and to try to understand how things really got done. As an analysis of parliament, the political machine, the civil service, and "the Establishment", his work has rarely been bettered - Jeremy Paxman provided a sort of more anecdotal and perhaps entertaining analysis of the Establishment as it stood in the early 90s in "Friends In High Places", but Sampson's revised work is a masterpiece.

Unlike the earlier versions of the book, Sampson has several axes to grind rather conspicuously in this edition. His own politics surface occasionally - he was a founder Social Democrat, and it's clear that his own sympathies are somewhere to the Left of the Blair government. His analysis of parliament and the political parties is sobering -- he sees politics as being fundamentally in decline, with the two major parties re-invented as essentially support machines for presidential-style Prime Ministers or leaders of the opposition; politics as a career is seen as a refuge for talentless, visionless machine politicians from all ends of the spectrum, and the Liberal Democrats are seen as a regional irrelevance.

Sampson believes that the standards of Parliamentary debate are at an all-time low; that Cabinet government is in abeyance; the Lords has lost its role as a chamber that can have significant effects upon legislation; that the Civil Service is politicised and de-professionalised; and that political power is now in the hands of a Presidential-style Prime Minister and his "kitchen cabinet" of PR people and unelected advisors. It's sobering stuff.

Sampson's analysis then broadens into the quangos and agencies, the military/intelligence complex, the City and big business, academia, and the media; and finds that all of these are ever-more-closely tied to the nexus of power in Downing Street.

In a sense, the message of the first edition of this book was quite simple - a bengin, "Butskellite" consensus Establishment that drew from both moderate Labour and "one nation" Toryism ran Britain. The message of this edition is equally simple - the Prime Minister runs Britain, with little reference to party, Parliament, or people.

Sampson finds one ray of hope in the Unions. For decades castigated as bringing ruin upon British industry they're shown in this book as being more active, more relevant, more organised and more competent than both the Labour and Liberal Democrat party machines; more forward-looking in terms of social and political policy, more analytical and more vibrant.

This is a fine epitaph and a book that anyone with an interest in modern Britain needs to read. It's beautifully written, crisply understated, and closely argued.

A masterpiece.

Not only is he unbelievably well-informed - that one person is able to write in such depth about no less than 24 tentacles to the governance of Britain is in itself worthy of five stars - but he is also able to make very informative comparisons going back to 1962, to demonstrate both the changes that have occurred, and the costs to democracy that have been involved.

Having first voted in the 1959 election, which returned SuperMac with a majority of over 100, it is possible to share Sampson's dismay at the decline that has taken place.

During the course of that campaign I attended meetings in Birmingham addressed by both Harold Macmillan, and a few days later, Hugh Gaitskell.

Looking back, the then lack of security now beggars belief, coupled to the fact that, today, only loyal acolytes would get into the hall.

That election was, I believe, the first in which TV played a part. As Sampson now shows, the role of TV is now all-embracing, and offers party leaders much more control of the presentation of the message.

Of particular interest is the Venn diagram - inside the front and back covers - in which Sampson shows how the various components of the Establishment relate to each other. At either end are two huge circles, on the left Media, and on the right The Rich.

The Prime Minister looms large, Parliament and Cabinet have to be searched for, and Political Parties are of even smaller significance.

All this is fleshed-out in great detail in the book's 24 chapters, and Chapter 25 - Who Runs This Place - is a detailed and perceptive summary.

Finally, and this is the cherry on the icing on the cake, the book is bang up-to-date, including much on the subject of Hutton, the implications of Blair's adventure in Iraq, and the fact that Parliamentary Committees are such poor instruments in terms of the scrutiny and accountability of the Executive.

Sampson shows that the 'separation of powers', first mooted by John Locke at the end of the 17th Century, is still not effectively built into the British Constitution.

If you read one book this year on where we are up to in 2004, go for this one.