Life of Politics

Mr Fairlie draws on his twenty years' experience as a lobby correspondent and political commentator to explain how Britain is actually governed. He cuts through all the platitudes about democracy and representative government to reveal the truly distinctive characteristics of a free society and its parliamentary institutions. His findings are challenging. Many readers will be surprised, all will be stimulated, and none will be able to avoid revising some of their beliefs about British parliament and government.

Mr Fairlie stresses the importance of the life of politics itself, as something distinct from the abstractions of party ideology. Making political experience rather than theory his guide, he suggests that the genius of British politics lies in its being a two-party system. Only because the British people have preferred to entrust their government to a single-party administration confronted by a united opposition-so that the known alternative has acted as a constant check on the failings of the majority, while rivalry has spurred it to continued effort-have the paralyzing coalitions, the party blocs and manoeuvres of continental politics been kept out of Westminster.

Even so, the British system depends as much as any other on the character and capabilities of politicians. Mr Fairlie, who has observed the leading figures of British politics at close range, is unsparing in praise where praise is due, but he has a sharp and remorseless eye for the weaknesses that matter. Although he is mistrustful of reformers, academic and otherwise, Mr Fairlie makes some forceful and cogent criticism of his own.