Francis Wheen
Unfit to Rule
The Blunders of our Governments
By Anthony King & Ivor Crewe
Oneworld 470pp £25 order from our bookshop
In the essays known as the Federalist Papers, published in 1787–8, the American statesman James Madison deplored ‘the blunders of our governments’. What, he asked, ‘are all the repealing, explaining and amending laws, which fill and disgrace our voluminous codes, but so many monuments of deficient wisdom?’ Taking their cue and their title from Madison, Anthony King and Ivor Crewe set out to chronicle the deficient wisdom that has disgraced successive British governments over the past thirty years.
At first I feared that they would pull their punches, as both are honorary life members of the political establishment: King, who rejoices in the title of Millennium Professor of British Government, seems to have been a mainstay of election-night coverage since the days of Gladstone and Disraeli; Crewe, Master of University College, Oxford, was knighted in 2006 after persuading vice-chancellors to support the Labour government’s introduction of top-up fees. ‘One thing this book is not about’, they write in the introduction, ‘is pointing the finger of blame at individuals.’ Their lofty purpose is to
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'This is entertainment of the highest class.'
@NJCooper_crime reviews new thrillers by Mick Herron, Kassandra Montag, @LVaughanwrites, @AuthorSJBolton, @ajaychow, @tombradby, @SaraParetsky, @writejemmawayne & @GillianMAuthor.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/may-2022-crime-round-up
'The day Simon and I Vespa-d from Daunt to Daunt to John Sandoe to Hatchards to Goldsboro, places where many of the booksellers have become my friends over the years, was the one with the high puffy clouds, the very strong breeze, the cool-warm sunlight.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/temple-of-vespa
Some salient thoughts on book collecting from Michael Dirda with a semi tragic conclusion that I suspect many of us can relate to from the @Lit_Review #WednesdayMotivation