Who runs Britain?

Who Runs this Place? The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century by Anthony Sampson; John Murray, 2004; pages 416, 20.

THERE can be few books which fulfil the promise of their title more completely than this. For Anthony Sampson - journalist by trade, but contemporary historian by inclination - has once again, in a revised edition of his classic Anatomy of Britain, compiled a comprehensive inventory of who wields power in every sector of British society. But the book is more than just a list. Or, at least, it is a list with an attitude. In his introduction, he describes himself as a "tour guide to a rambling stately home, opening the doors to elaborately furnished rooms". But, unlike the members of that profession, he analyses and criticises as well as describing what he sees. Sampson believes that power has become too centralised and remote and that, in consequence, democracy itself has been diminished.

He sets out his complaint in the introduction: "The British people have good reason to feel confused and alienated. Their Parliament pretends to be sovereign, under an unwritten constitution, while its real powers... and much of the real sovereignty has moved elsewhere." What is more, their industries and their institutions have become equally insensitive and detached from the people they claim to serve.

That contention is beyond dispute. But Sampson does more than regret the pretence. He suggests - by implication rather than assertion - that the undesirable state of affairs could be halted, possibly even reversed. The fault, according to Who Runs This Place?, lies in the people of Britain, not in their stars.

Members of Parliament have become less distinguished, more professionalised, more insecure and hardly muster enough talent "to form an effective government" - an error based on the popular fallacy that politicians need to possess the skills of businessmen. The European Union gets even shorter shrift. Although he describes Brussels as the "new bogey of unaccountable power", he has enough sympathy with Conservative politician Nicholas Ridley's description of the European Commission to quote it with evident relish: "Seventeen unelected, rejected politicians with no accountability to anyone."

The way in which Sampson describes the democratic degeneration makes the book zip along. But by far the most important parts of Who Runs This Place? are its brilliant sections on commerce and the financial institutions. They make clear why all the detriments have come about and, in consequence, contradict the notion that it is possible to put things right. Science and technology have compressed the working of the world into fewer, bigger units. If the giant corporations - national as well as multinational - can be controlled at all, they must be answerable to bigger, wider forms of government - institutions which, by definition, are remote and difficult to make democratically accountable.

THE best books reveal facts which readers can barely believe that they did not know before. Who Runs This Place? contains such revelations in abundance. I am ashamed not to have realised that, as long ago as 1960, Richard Titmuss - after working on the British Labour Party's Labour's plan for a comprehensive pension - warned that one result would be "power concentrated in relatively few hands, working at the apex of a handful of giant bureaucracies, technically supported by a group of professional experts and accountable, in practice, to no one". And pension funds with their immense sums to invest, have, because of their preoccupation with short-term results, affected "the whole future of industries, cities and communities" without being answerable to anyone.

My concern about the malign influence of the new capitalism was immensely increased by those pages of Who Runs This Place? which answers its own question by describing individuals rather than institutions. Consider his description of the British industrialist Lord King - a man who once said that the strongest argument in favour of privatising British Airways (B.A.) was his refusal to run it if it remained nationalised.

He was the prototype of the new-style buccaneer, with a bluff style and keen financial brain. He quickly downsized the staff to make B.A. profitable in the market place and reinforced the airline's near monopoly. He allowed dirty tricks to keep out his rival, Virgin, and deployed all his formidable lobbying power to gain support from government and Parliament, dispensing free first-class seats to MPs and donating to the Conservative (Tory) Party.

All that was necessary for him to keep his power was a balance sheet which kept a handful of institutional investors happy. At least MPs with "little experience outside politics" and sometimes "associations with sleazy activities" have to stand for election from time to time.

Tony Blair - as Sampson points out in a chapter devoted to "the jettisoning of old ideals" - was, from the start of his premiership, "determined to be friendly towards businessmen and enjoyed their company", an enthusiasm that led Labour's one time Foreign Secretary Robin Cook to observe that the chairman of British Aerospace appeared to have a key to the garden door of Number 10, Downing Street. But it is difficult to argue that, in the modern world, politicians should keep business at arm's length. They do more than create jobs and generate national income. They make and break governments.

I SAT in a British Cabinet which, way back in 1976, almost lost office because it had "sacrificed business confidence". Men like Lord King disapproved of us. Even 25 years ago - with the global market only just beginning to trade - money openly challenged politics for power.

So now in the U.K., "the rich can feel politically more secure after years of being battered by left-wing politicians" for a good part of the 20th century. "Collectivism has given way to individualism" - even "in the professions which have always been divided between public responsibility and private gain".

Sampson is critical of successive governments' failures to face down the legal establishment and prohibit its restrictive practices. But, despite the record speed with which Who Runs This Place? appears to have been produced - allowing it to deal with events in late 2003 - the story of the law's delays has been overtaken by the Lord Chief Justice of England's refusal to accept that immigration appeals should not be heard by the High Courts. In that particular, the power of the bar and bench was used on behalf of liberty.

That exercise of countervailing powers was, of course, a rare exception. The problem which this book so graphically reveals is that, whatever the unwritten constitution may require, there are no checks and balances in Britain today.

With the exception of the neglected poor, we are all basically on the same side. There is shadow-boxing in Parliament and occasional outbursts of academic or industrial irritation. But we are united in our support for a competitive, profit-led society. Power resides with money.

Tony Blair has become the personification of that system. In a quotation which disturbingly lacks a reference, the Prime Minister is said to have claimed: "I have taken from my party everything they thought they believed in. I have stripped them of their core beliefs. What keeps it together is success and power." Whether or not the boast is apocryphal, its message is tragically near to the truth. Power in Britain has been snatched from the people.

Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004