Making sense of the structure of power

I had enjoyed my reread of “The Triumph of the Political Class” (2007) to such an extent that I started to google the other titles I remembered dealing with the same issue…to discover that what I imagined to be a dozen books on the contemporary structure of power (in the English language) turned out to be more than 20….And I can claim to have read only 8 of them – just over a third…..So some fast skimming is in order.  
A recent academic article I unearthed What do we mean when we talk about Political class? (Allen and Cairney 2017) turned out to be  a very pedantic analysis. But, as a background read to help make sense of the three thousand or so pages in this collection, I would highly recommend this (20 page) article on The Past, Present and Future of the British political science discipline

It’s on occasions like this that I would like to have some European counterparts to share analyses with……what, for example, are the key French and German books in the literature?? And how, if at all, do their studies differ from these?

Twenty years ago, the British system was universally admired. Now - and not only due to Brexit - it's seen a “basket case”. And sadly, with devolution now almost 20 years old, the Scottish Assembly and governance system does not seem to have lived up to its early promise.
The French have been highly critical of their centralised and elitist systems for some decades – and don’t seem any happier these days…

Only the German system had more balance – although it too is now suffering.

 Despite the explosion in the number of European political scientists these days (the European Consortium for Political Research alone claims 20,000 members), there doesn’t seem all that much in depth comparative analysis – at least not that’s easily accessible. Perry Anderson is about the only character with the linguistic ability to supply us Brits with extensive analyses of post-war and contemporary debates in France, Germany and Italy. His stunning study The New Old World (2009) can be read in its entirety here (all 560 pages).

Obviously my selection is arbitrary but I think it does catch most of the key writing…..The table starts with the most recent material - and the cutoff point is at the start of the new millennium since this was the point at which the New Labour style began to make itself felt....

Studies of the system of Power – mostly UK

Title	Summary
The UK’s Changing Democracy – the 2018 Democratic Audit; Dunleavy, Park and Taylor	“Democratic Audit” publishes an annual analysis – described here. This is its latest 500 page study – carried out by academics but who write well!
The Political Class – why it matters who our politicians are; Peter Allen (2018)	Focuses on the way the homogeneity of the political class damages the quality of decisions – written by a political scientist
Reckless Opportunists – elites at the end of the establishment; Aeron Davis (2018)	Rather one-sided critique
Prosperity and Justice – a plan for the new economy (IPPR 2018) Final report on economic justice	Most books focus on political power. Although this is a book about prescriptions – produced by a commission of the great and the good - it starts with an implicit critique which goes wider than mere politics
New Power – how it’s changing the 21st Century; Helmans and Timms (2018)	A typical, breathless, American “take” on how the internet is apparently challenging “old power”. Lacks any historical sense…..
State of Power 2018 (TNI)	An annual look at global capitalism by a left-wing Netherlands-based Foundation
State of Power 2017 (TNI)	Ditto
The Establishment  - and how they get away with it; Owen Jones (2014)	No pretence at objectivity in this hard-hitting analysis by a left-wing journalist of what’s wrong with Britain. So not limited to constitutional issues..Well written and strong on recommendations….
Ruling the Void – the hollowing of Western Democracy; Peter Mair (2013)	Rated as the most significant analysis of the issues of the past 25 years…by a political scientist
The New Few – power and inequality in Britain Now; Frederic Mount (2012)	A surprising critique from a Margaret Thatcher adviser!
Who Runs Britain? Robert Peston (2008)	Less an analysis dealing with the question than a critique of the political economic strategy of New Labour
Democracy Inc – managed democracy and the spectre of inverted totalitarianism; SM Wolin (2008)	Written by one of America’s greatest political scientists
https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/	A great website by an academic whose book on the subject is in to its 7th edition
Triumph of the political class; Peter Oborne (2007)	A provocative analysis a journalist of how the traditional British Establishment has morphed into a much more powerful and homogeneous political class
Power to the People – an independent inquiry into Britain’s democracy (Rowntree Trust 2006)	Unfortunately, this investigation limited itself to political and constitutional aspects
British Politics – a critical introduction; Stuart McAnulla (2006) see also the google version	This is a textbook – but a rare critical one which nicely sets out what’s wrong with both the traditional textbooks but also the newer ones which emphasise networks and negotiation
Thatcher and Sons; Simon Jenkins (2006)	Very much in the style of the Oborne book, this “rightist” Guardian journalist gives a strong critique of the destruction of the last vestiges of pluralism
Who Runs this place? The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century; Anthony Sampson  (2004)	The last of a series produced over 40 years by this famous journalist
The Power Inquiry (2004)	Like the 2006 study, limits the analysis to the political aspects. Produced by a commission
Democratic Audit of the United Kingdom; (Democratic Audit 2003)	Incorporating the negative effects of New labour
The Captive State – the corporate takeover of Britain; George Monbiot (2001)	The most explosive critique – from one of the best leftist journalists
Political Power and democratic control – the democratic audit of the United Kingdom; S Weir and D Beetham (Rowntree 1999)	One of the early audits

Controlling the Masses

Second-hand bookshops do not get enough credit – first for their shelter from the juggernaut marketing of fashionable titles and then with the delight of a text found which has languished unappreciated after a decade or so…..

Two titles caught my eye this week in a new downtown outlet opposite Bucuresti University – the first Who Runs this place? The Anatomy of Britain in the 21^st Century (2004) was the final contribution of a famous journalist, Anthony Sampson, who was of south African origin and had started in 1962 what became a series of efforts to capture the anatomy of the UK power structure. ….Extracts can be read here. Sampson himself became so ensconced in his role as voyeur that he almost became one of the institutions of which he wrote – as can be seen in this tribute. New Labour was half-way through its 13 years as he was drafting the book and the impact of its media manipulation was already in evidence. But a quick skim suggested that it might suffer from being a tad incestuous – with the references consisting of either newspaper articles or political biographies. Not a solitary academic reference

The Triumph of the Political Class by journalist Peter Oborne (2007)  was the other (smaller) bargain which I swept up – first read and blogged about in 2014. It has a much more powerful tale to tell - of the destruction by Thatcher in the 1980s of the traditional power of trade unions, universities, local government, the judiciary and the civil service. And of the huge rise under Blair et al since 1997 of the power of the political class and media – and the further emasculation of parliament, the Cabinet and the civil service. Interestingly, he coins the phrase “manipulative populism” – and identifies the significance of Peter Mair’s writing to the fate of the Western political party

The nature and location of power fascinated me from an early age – I had studied Elite theorists in the early 1960s on my political sociology course at University. Although Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) and Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) had led the way, it was Robert Michels’ (1876-1936) Political Parties (1911) which made the lasting impression on me - with his close study of trade unionists and social democrat politicians and derivation of “the iron law of oligarchy”.

For more than a century, one of the central issues of our time has been that of how “the masses” might be “controlled” in an age of democracy….These authors, thoroughly “Real” in their “Politik”, hardly suggested that the political and commercial elites had much to worry about – but this did not prevent writers such as Walter Lippmann (Public Opinion 1922) and Ortego y Gasset (Revolt of the Masses 1930) from conjuring up frightening narratives about the dangers of the great unwashed masses. Lippmann’s full book can be read here…

The scintillating prose of Joseph Schumpeter’s (1883-1950) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1943) was also a favourite of mine – with his theory of the “circulation of the elites” reassuring the elites that all would be well….

But the populism evident since the start of the new millennium has sparked new anxieties on this count amongst the liberal elites – and indeed raised the question anew as to whether capitalism is consistent with democracy…

One guy whose words are worth reading on that question is SM Wolin – whose book on the history of political thought - Politics and Vision - held me spellbound in the 1960s. In his 90s he produced this great critique of the US system – Democracy Inc – managed democracy and the specter of inverted totalitarianism (2008) – reviewed here. And this is an interesting recent article, Why Elites always Rule which reminds the new generation of the significance of Pareto’s work…..

Since starting this post, I’ve noticed quite a few new books on this topic and will do an annotated reading list shortly of the dozen or so more interesting of these….

Complacency of the European Class

After the last post – on identity and political correctness – was it coincidence or serendipity that brought The Strange Death of Europe – immigration, identity, Islam by Douglas Murray (2017) to my attention first in the window of Bucharest’s Humanitas shop) and, mere days later, at the impressive Nautilius stand at the annual Gaudeamus Book Fair - where it was duly bought?

I had been less open 6-7 years ago when I had encountered a similar book - Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe; Immigration, Islam and the West (2010) which (very strangely in my view) Murray fails to mention anywhere in his 2017 book. I had left the Caldwell book lying on the shelf – my antennae telling me that the author was a right-wing “stirrer”.…But 2014/15 had seen the massive waves of immigrants pour into Europe – and Angela Merkel’s astonishing open invitation to immigrants…..if quickly withdrawn and translated into immigration quotas - which were quickly rejected by member States representing both sides of the old East-West border.. And migration – as I pointed out at the time – had played a crucial role in the Brexit vote although I have not subsequently written about it.

A few minutes later – with equal serendipity – I had come across and bought at the Book Fair (for 2 euros) a remaindered book by one Andrew Anthony entitled The Fall-out – how a guilty liberal lost his innocence (2007) which documents one man’s disillusionment with the conventional wisdom of the time. The link gives a sympathetic review to the confessions of someone caught up in his early life in a highly simplistic (what I call a Manichean) labelling of the world  

 Both books are very good reads - and have tempted me to offer foreign readers my take on the confused debate which Europe is now having about immigration….   

At first blush Murray’s bool looks like the latest in a long series of books with “Islam and immigration” figuring in the subtitle. But it is informed by ………a quality of writing that manages to be spritely and elegiac at the same time. Murray’s is also a truly liberal intellect ......and doesn’t betray the slightest hint of atavism or mean-spirited-ness. Yes, Murray is quite good at piling up the numbers that outline the collapse of European populations and the explosion of migration in the past decades and especially over the past two years.
He’s also quite good at batting down the facile arguments for allowing migration on this scale. Why must Germany turn to Eritrea for a work force when youth unemployment around the European Mediterranean is between 25 and 30 percent? 

His opening chapters on “How we got hooked on Immigration” and “The Excuses we told ourselves” present the basic facts and arguments we have all used to make sense of the various phases of migration in the post-war period. In the UK case, net immigration was noticed for the first time only at the end of the 1990s - and I well remember the first research reporting on the economic effects – consistently stressing its positive side. As an ex-pat I had no reason to take sides but did wonder that little mention was made of dependents and remittances abroad…..

The Tyranny of Guilt?

And, as someone who left the UK in 1990, I have little understanding of the “guilt” of the European Imperial past which has apparently been inculcated into younger generations – which both Murray and Caldwell assure us is a powerful factor in the reluctance of the European political class to act in the face of the immigration wave….

Giving up the ghost?

One of Murray’s most interesting chapters is that entitled “Tiredness” – which argues that Europe suffers from “an exhaustion caused by a loss of meaning.... .” Substitute faiths, whether in the high cultural visions of Wagner or the political theories of Marx, have also failed and been discarded. Murray is especially taken with the deconstructed edifice of contemporary academia. He has a section about a conference in which the “full catastrophe of German thought” dawned on him and which powerfully conveys my own feelings about a lot of "post-modernist" writing: 

A group of academics and others had gathered to discuss the history of Europe’s relations with the Middle East and North Africa. It soon became clear that nothing would be learned because nothing could be said. A succession of philosophers and historians spent their time studiously attempting to say nothing as successfully as possible. The less that was successfully said, the greater the relief and acclaim. No attempt to address any idea, history or fact was able to pass without first being put through the pit-stop of the modern academy.

No generality could be attempted and no specific could be uttered. It was not only history and politics that were under suspicion. Philosophy, ideas and language itself had been cordoned off as though around the scene of a crime. 

The job of the academics was to police the cordons – all the while maintaining some distractions in order to at all costs prevent wanderers from stumbling back onto the terrain of ideas….

All relevant words were immediately flagged and disputed – “nation” and “history” had the place in uproar and “culture” brought events to a grinding halt…..

If there remains any overriding idea, it is that ideas are a problem. If there is any common remaining value judgement, it is that value judgements are wrong. If there is any remaining certainty, it is a distrust of certainty.

“The Strange Death of Europe” is one of these rare books about contemporary issues which needs to be read slowly…with a marker…and reread…. I had not realised that it was as long ago as 2010 that Merkel first made her statement that “multiculturalism is dead” and that this refrain was quickly taken up by other political leaders. And yet, how badly they seem to have used those 8 difficult years!

Further Reading

“Strange Death of Europe” (2017)

https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2017/06/02/the-strange-death-of-europe-immigration-identity-islam - the most important review –

https://www.newstatesman.com/2018/07/strange-death-europe-douglas-murray-review

http://hungarianreview.com/article/20180719_douglas_murray_on_the_strange_death_of_europe

https://www.npr.org/2017/06/27/534597202/the-strange-death-of-europe-warns-against-impacts-of-immigration?t=1542262916642

http://www.dartreview.com/a-review-of-the-strange-death-of-europe/

https://vimeo.com/260817325

“Reflections on the Revolution in Europe; Immigration, Islam and the West”; Christopher Caldwell (2010)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/17/christopher-caldwell-immigration-islam

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/13/christopher-caldwell-revolution-in-europe

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/christopher-caldwell-on-muslim-integration-it-s-much-better-if-things-are-discussed-openly-a-668750.html

https://fabiusmaximus.com/2018/04/10/tiredness-the-strange-death-of-europe/

http://theorytuesdays.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Strange-Death-of-Europe-Excerpts-Murray.pdf

http://theworthyhouse.com/2017/09/08/book-review-the-strange-death-of-europe-douglas-murray/

https://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Revolution-Europe-Immigration-Islam/dp/0307276759

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/14/afd-german-media-politicians-angela-merkel

Identity Politics

How has it come to pass that the world is divided these days on the issue of identity and political correctness?? Is it the insidious result of the American “culture wars” – which can be traced back  to 1968; Of an American left targeting Universities to help develop “identity politics”? Or simply the results of the polarising effect of the social media…..?

Whatever the precise origin, Brexit and the election of Trump have helped divide the world into two groups - “cosmopolitans” and “left-behinds” – with the former favouring open borders and a libertarian agenda; and the latter a more traditional one which has only recently found expression…

Except that this ignores a significant middle group which doesn’t fit such a Manichean perspective….and I readily confess to being a fully paid-up member of these “mugwumps” who don’t take up predictable positions - and are as a result considered unreliable – with “their mugs on one side of the fence and their wumps on the other”!

Take “human rights” as an example….I still remember my reaction when a young Kyrgz woman quoted some recondite UN declaration at me - viz to launch into an explanation that such rights were the results of long and bitterly-fought struggles eg for trade union let alone gender rights – and would not be enforced by simple diktat…from thousands of kilometres away. But she seemed to expect the magic waving of a wand……gain without pain…

And when feminism became active in the UK in the 1980s, I was responsible for a new “social strategy” which was trying to assert the rights of the unemployed and low-paid - and I confess that I had then little sympathy for what I felt were the interests of well-paid women pushing for an end to the “glass-ceiling”.… The issue, I felt, was simply one of priorities in what is, after all, always a crowded agenda for political attention….

With its referendum on the constitutional definition of a family, Romania provides another recent example. This grass-roots initiative would have restricted the definition of a family unit to that between a man and a woman (thereby denying that definition to single mothers!). This did not prevent three and a half million voters from voting yes but this was (at 21%) below the required 30% threshold. Many who supported the amendment argued that social values were offended by same-sex marriage and that it was unrealistic to expect villagers suddenly to accept that such behaviour was normal….     

Francis Fukuyama’s latest book - Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment - reminds us of the dual aspect of identity - individual and social….the first being our own sense of who we are ( very much to the fore in this narcissistic age), the latter being the sense of group differentiation. It is an issue which has clearly been eating away at Fukuyama for some time – evidence this powerful 2007 article Identity, immigration and liberal democracy which is very good on the contrast between US assimilation v European multiculturalism…

From the excerpts, his new book seems a good overview of how fundamentally politics has changed from being a fight between labour and capital to being a contest over identity and belonging…. 

While the economic inequalities arising from the last fifty or so years of globalization are a major factor explaining contemporary politics, economic grievances become much more acute when they are attached to feelings of indignity and disrespect. Indeed, much of what we understand to be economic motivation actually reflects not a straightforward desire for wealth and resources, but the fact that money is perceived to be a marker of status and buys respect.

Modern economic theory is built around the assumption that human beings are rational individuals who all want to maximize their “utility”—that is, their material well-being—and that politics is simply an extension of that maximizing behaviour. However, if we are ever to properly interpret the behaviour of real human beings in the contemporary world, we have to expand our understanding of human motivation beyond this simple economic model that so dominates much of our discourse.
No one contests that human beings are capable of rational behaviour, or that they are self-interested individuals who seek greater wealth and resources.

 But human psychology is much more complex than the rather simpleminded economic model suggests. Before we can understand contemporary identity politics, we need to step back and develop a deeper and richer understanding of human motivation and behaviour. We need, in other words, a better theory of the human soul.

I’m aware that this post has wandered a bit……starting with an (obvious) assertion about polarisation….with a defence of those who seek a more nuanced or “balanced” view… Some confession about past prejudices duly followed….and also a recent Romanian example ..…I then came across the Fukuyama book which clearly warranted inclusion....

Until now the conclusion read that - 

Grassroots pressure rarely leads to significant change – not at least on its own.……But neither do the imposition of national or international norms – which produces a push-back if not angry resentment  Social change generally comes from a combination of both.

A July post had explained that the pincer theory of change had been my default theory since the 1980s (although it later gave way to one called “windows of opportunity”)

In those days, it was clearly possible for some elite “insiders” to work together with activists to change things. The collapse in trust now seems to make such alliances impossible?

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst.. are full of passionate intensity”.

WB Yeats

Reading List

Identity, immigration and liberal democracy; F Fukuyama (2007) very good on the contrast between US assimilation v European multiculturalism…

New Yorker Review of Fukuyama book – Identity  

a rather fatuous review – but useful for getting you to read more..

podcast with Fukuyama

The political theory of recognition – the case of the white working class (article)
The Once and future liberal - after identity politics; Mark Lilla (2017)

The Limits of Identity – ethnicity, conflict and politics; article by Richard Jenkins (2000)

identity politics and the left Hobsbawm 1980s

The Zombies take over the OECD

Time was when I read avidly everything the OECD produced on public management…..it was so clearly-written and uplifting…..I actually delivered a paper to one of its Paris seminars in 1990 – if on urban management which was then my area of expertise….But it was practitioners who were then the mainstay of OECD operations and gave it its credibility

The World Bank, on the other hand – with its legions of consultant economists - was suspect – particularly its infamous 1997 Annual Development report The State in a Changing World. To their eternal credit, the Japanese had been warning the Bank that it, for one, did not accept the Bank’s neo-liberal view of the State - Robert Wade’s important article by New Left Review in 2001 gives some of the background to the resignation of Joseph Stiglitz, the Bank’s Chief Economist, driven out in 1999 by Larry Summers…..

The OECD seemed to have a more activist stance on the role of the state – to which my attention turned from the mid-1990s as readers know from my 1999 book In Transit – notes on good governance. The OECD’s 2005 report on Modernising Government was the first warning sign that it had perhaps left its benign role behind.

Critical books and articles confirmed our doubts – particularly The OECD and transnational governance; ed Mahon and McBride (2008); and The OECD and global public management reform; L Pal (2009)

This Canadian academic, Leslie Pal, has worked assiduously over the past decade to bring to our attention the nature and scale of the effort global organisations have made to market a concept of the modern state eg Best practices in public mant – a critical assessment; (2013) ; and The OECD and policy transfer; (2014)

Managing Change in OECD Government – an introductory framework; Huerta Melchor (OECD 2008) represents the high point of optimism – drafted as it was before the full implications of the global financial crisis had hit home. I;ve excerpted the opening couple of paras and explain why I’ve highlighted some text after the excerpts…..

Today’s world is highly competitive and demanding. Society is better informed and expects more from public and private organisations alike. Traditional public processes and institutions are less effective in satisfying people’s needs. Globalisation, the wide use of communication and information technologies, and the coming of the knowledge society, among other factors, are rapidly changing the world’s order. This has created new challenges to nation-states as people’s expectations from government have increased, job seekers are more demanding on job content, and societies call for more investment in education, health, and society but are unwilling to pay more taxes ("Modernising Government: the way forward", OECD 2005).

Personnel systems are becoming less adaptive to these new challenges. Indeed, traditional practices in public administration are the product of a different context with different priorities. Now, governments have a new role in society and are taking on new responsibilities but generally without the necessary tools to manage them effectively. Public managers are expected to improve the performance of their organisations focusing on efficiency, effectiveness, and propriety which were not the priorities 50 years ago.

Therefore, to be able to respond to a changing environment the public sector has to transform itsstructures, processes, procedures, and above all, its culture. In this new order, the management of change has been identified as a critical variable for the success or failure of a reform policy. Managing change aims at ensuring that the necessary conditions for the success of a reform initiative are met. A reform policy may fail to achieve change, may generate unintended results or face resistance from organisations and/or individuals whose interests are affected.

For that reason, policy-makers and politicians need to pay special attention to issues such as leadership, shared vision, sequencing, resources for change, and cultural values while designing and implementing a reform initiative.

I’m always suspicious when abstract entities such as “society” are credited with thoughts….it’s called “reification”; presumes uniformity of thought; and assumes away any possibility of differences of opinion let alone social dissent!! Very dangerous….

And just look at the phrase – “new order”!! And the way that “contexts” have developed priorities….I thought it was people who had priorities!

I explained some years ago why I am suspicious of manuals and “toolkits”…….And seven years on, the OECD has just issued this booklet (for aspiring EU members) Toolkit for……public admin reforms and sector strategies – guidance for SIGMA partners (OECD 2018). which reads as if it were written by a sixth former….  Apparently the EC introduced (in 2014) “a third pillar” into its enlargement policy – to complement those of “rule of law” and “economic governance” – namely public admin reform….I’m sure the army of EC consultants and their counterparts in Balkan and “neighbourhood” countries are very grateful to have such cookbooks – they save everyone the trouble of having to develop approaches which actually fit the local context……

Examples of the new “Manual”/Guidelines/Toolkit approach

The Principles of Public Administration (OECD – SIGMA 2017)

Systems approaches to public sector challenges – working with change (OECD 2017)

Quality of Public Admin – a factsheet; EC Factsheet (2016)
Quality of Public Administration – a toolkit for Practitioners (EC 2015) 

From Old Public Admin to the New Public Services – implications for public sector reform in developing countries (UNDP 2015)
Making Reform Happen (OECD 2010)

Sequentialism or gradualism? – on the transition to democracy and rule of law (2009)  - a more critical article

Kenneth Roy – a voice to renew faith in journalism - RIP

Most “names” that resonate with us are of famous people whose activities – whether celebrated in music, text or acts of courage – somehow send a tingle down our spine….

Kenneth Roy - who has just died mere weeks after revealing his terminal diagnosis - was not a "famous person", although he certainly had a profile in well-read Scottish circles. His was rather a “voice” (sadly almost unique in modern journalism) which measured the moral significance of public actions….

He was the founder and editor of a small Scottish journal – Scottish Review – to which ex-pats like me would look forward with great anticipation. It has a freshness matched by few other journals…The people who write for it did so because they had something to say – unlike most of the text which is inflicted on us these days….

His articles were a joy to read and represent what I imagine is the best of traditional journalism borne of the requirement in those days for new recruits to spend their initial years reporting the doings of the Police Court…. As the apparently self-penned obituary which announced his passing put it,

“he always maintained this experience gave him a dark view of human nature, particularly as his duties were sometimes combined with a night-time trawl of the city's police stations for copy”.

It was such training which must account for the powerful story he always tells – which generally mix in the personal aside and local colour. Ian Jack is another journalist of this ilk…. 

I didn’t know him – although we corresponded once a few years ago when it looked as if I might be able to pop into his offices on a rare visit to Scotland. But, somehow, the knowledge of his mere existence and continued activity kept my faith in humanity…

In his honour, I have started to reread his book The Invisible Spirit – a life of post-war Scotland 1945-75. It was a part of a trilogy he was doing – the second part of which was The Broken Journey - a life of Scotland 1976-99 which was reviewed by one of this little country’s many great authors

There is only one Amazon review but it is an excellent one which captures the essence of Roy’s style…..

This is a big book, physically and intellectually and a very important book too - but rest assured that it is an incredibly easy read. This is mostly because Kenneth Roy's prose is so clear and so elegant. Above all, it's a book that tackles complex and difficult subjects in an accessible and thought provoking way. Every chapter stays in your mind and makes you think. The subject matter may be serious, the analysis incisive, but it is also laugh-out-loud funny at times, mostly because Kenneth Roy can see a devastating humour in the most grim of situations.

He has a sharp and deadly wit and a very fine sense of the ridiculous. Ridicule may well be the best weapon against so much of the material contained within these pages. As the writer points out in his final chapter, 'the reason for re-assembling some of the more deplorable features of Scottish public life is not only to expose...the poor quality of so much of it. It is to make the general...point that the people of Scotland were on the whole badly served by their masters - and by what passed for a free press.'

I lived in Scotland through a significant number of these years and I can vouch for the essential truth of this account, although it is a salutary experience to read it all of a piece like this.
It's a sad and worrying book. Worrying because by the end, you are forced to the conclusion that pretty much anyone who aspires to be a politician, or even to play a significant part in public life, perhaps anyone who craves power, may well be constitutionally unsuited to the role: sic a parcel of rogues indeed. And it's depressing in its brilliant illumination and analysis of venality, disregard for suffering and parochial small-mindedness (almost in spite of the author - who tends to err on the side of fairness, if not quite kindness.)

There are precious few heroes or heroines in this book - although there are a few and what a relief it is to come upon them from time to time! It should be required reading for all Scots, whether for or against independence, or still undecided. It should also be required reading for anyone, anywhere in the world, with an interest in post-war Scottish, or even British history. A masterpiece. And an entertaining one, at that.

Catherine Czerkawska

This morning’s news of his death shocked me into recording this homage. It is at times like these that we both question - and need strongly to reaffirm - the significance of our brief lives….

His memorial service was held on 14 March 2019 at Glasgow City Chambers and can be seen here on Youtube. It is deeply evocative - not least for the reading by renowned Scottish actor Bill Paterson of some of Kenneth's texts. These tell us so much about the mix of insight and pawky humour which characterised Kenneth Roy's journalism. I highly recommend it 

The painting is "Whiteinch Library" by Scottish artist Frank McNab which adorns the cover of his "The Invisible Spirit"