Book Review: Power and the People: A Guide to Constitutional Reform
| Date | 01 September 1997 |
| Author | Chris Sladen |
| Published date | 01 September 1997 |
| DOI | 10.1177/014473949701700206 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Teaching Public Administration, Autumn 1997, Vo/.xVII,
No.2,
pp 58-61
Book
Review
POWER
AND
THE
PEOPLE: A Guide to Constitutional Reform
Vernon
Bogdanor
(Victor Gollanz, 1997, pp 216, £ 16.99)
Dubbed 'the doyen
of
academic constitutional reformers' by colleagues,
Vernon Bogdanor's photo on the dust wrapper, with its lop-sided grin,
gives him rather the appearance
of
a guide offering cut-rate tours through
the dusty labyrinth
of
the British constitution. You want to see behind the
scenes
of
proportional representation? Solve the West Lothian question?
Find out how political parties can live without sleaze? Vernon's your
man!
Or, since in the first few pages he reveals that the 'constitution' can be
compressed into eight words ('What the Queen enacts in Parliament is
law') perhaps the whole thing is a chimera and we would
do
better to
think
of
Oxford's Professor
of
Government
as
a super salesman, with a
load
of
virtual reality software off the back
of
a lorry.
Occasionally, too, the reader may feel the need
of
a good anorak
as
protection against the author's breezy enthusiasm for proportional
representation, involving
as
it does half a dozen pages
of
mathematics to
explain just one election result in the Republic
of
Ireland. But
if
you
survive that test, the chapters on electoral reform, the referendum, and
devolution in particular, start to make sense in terms
of
Professor
Bogdanor's basic and rather sobering contention: things must change
if
we are to increase popular participation in politics and get 'the
constitution' out
of
the iron grip
of
professional party managers. At
present, he argues, it is not the people
's
government at all.
Other chapters deal with the House
of
Lord, how to fund political parties,
and the monarchy. Administrative reform gets scant attention; 1980s
civil service changes are mentioned only in passing: surely Whitehall
can't be that perfect? Or have Professors Bogdanor and Hennessy, in the
manner
of
party managers, carved things up, giving Hennessy first rights
in civil service reform?
58
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