At its heart, this is a book about unfairness. Why did the banks who caused the financial crash of 2008 get away with a huge public money bail-out, whereas ordinary people faced poverty and hardship? Why is big business allowed to get away with complex tax evasion schemes while people on benefits are demonised in the media? Why do so many MPs stand to benefit from changes they themselves are implementing? The fact these questions have to be aked is blamed on what Jones calls ‘The Establishment’.
You might be forgiven for thinking that you know what this is – after all, it’s been a popular buzz-word ever since it was coined by journalist Henry Fairlie in the 1950s. Groups such as politicians, bankers and the aristocracy, cosying up with a cuppa to chat about their time at Oxford, are known to all to be part of this age old club of people ‘protecting their positions in a democracy’. But this isn’t Jones’s definition. Nor is it simply ‘those with power who I object to’ – though this could be seen as a significant part of his argument.
Instead, he argues that it has become an ideological, rather than social, movement, championing right-wing ideas such as free-market capitalism and a paring back of the state. Yet this seems to suggest that a left-wing agenda pushed in exactly the same manner would be entirely acceptable, a point which I would certainly disagree with. He focusses more on criticising the ideals of those in power than he does on the way they got there and their connections, a factor which could perhaps limit the audience of his book. It is however refreshing that her recognises the ironies of his own postion – Oxbridge educated and with a large readership of his column in a popular national newspaper, factors that many would suggest make him part of the very organisation he criticises!
To Jones’s credit, The Establishment is certainly wide-ranging, giving his points the power of accumulation as they build up and up to a well-argued convincing argument. Despite this breadth, he sacrifices little depth as he moves from topic to topic in each of the eight chapters, interviewing key players as he does so.
In the first of these, he explores the link between think-tanks such as the Adam Smith Institute and the Taxpayers Alliance to a Conservative agenda. He criticises how they pass as ‘non-partisan grassroot organisations’ (which means unbiased organisations campaigning for bottom-up change), when in fact they only serve to expand the ‘Overton Window’, the range of plausible political ideas at that time – towards, of course, right-wing ideas. Next, he moves on to the ‘Westminster Cartel’, describing the revolving door between politicians and big business. A particularly memorable statistic was that 46% of the most profitable companies in the UK have an MP as a shareholder or on the board of directors – no wonder so many want to introduce legislation that aid businesses!
Jones continues in this vein for the following six chapters, covering subjects ranging from the media to the police, tax avoidance, the City, and Britain’s relationship with the US and the EU. On the way, he reveals ideas and statistics to liven up his perhaps not so original list. The UK and Iran are the only countries where members of the church are automatically given political positions, for example, something which surely needs to change to be brought in line with our secular and multi-cultural world. In this way he presents many salient points, although concealing among them some more dubious ideas and odd conclusions – who knew the BBC was such a well-known ‘mouthpiece for the Establishment?! It certainly opened my eyes to a much wider range of political viewpoints, encouraging me to find out more, and research key points, which was surely the author’s intention.
Having shocked the by now indignant and rebellious reader, does Jones have any suggestions to make? Well, kind of. He presents the goal of having every group against the establishment working together to produce a credible alternative with an ‘active interventionist state’, following the ancient cry of ‘no taxation without [proper] representation’. To this end, he makes a number of rather modest suggestions, including a higher top rate of tax, bringing services such as railways and banks into public ownership, banning MPs from taking up second jobs (therefore preventing possible conflicts of interest) and capping donations to political parties.
Achievable goals? Perhaps. A let-down after the rest of the book? Certainly.
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