Trust in government has hit rock bottom. From Partygate and the chaos of Covid to the Peter Mandelson affair and open fights between ministers and civil servants, the hidden wiring has been sparking for all to see. When tragedies like Grenfell or the Post Office scandal occur, governments are glacially slow to respond and accountability goes missing. As successive Prime Ministers catastrophically fall, many say Britain is broken and ungovernable.
Part memoir, part manifesto, Bad Government takes us behind the famous black door to reveal why the ship of state is so hard to steer. As the first female Private Secretary in No. 10, the author was the only other woman in the room when Margaret Thatcher resigned. Having shaped reforms under both Thatcher and Tony Blair before working to tackle gender inequalities and deepen government's connection with civil society, she now offers an insider's view of how the system evolved, why it is breaking and how it can be fixed.
Exploring why successive Prime Ministers have failed in their promises to reset government and rebuild trust, this arresting book draws on compelling personal insights, weaving together forty years of history with the crises of today. This is a vital blueprint for a different model of government before the electorate loses faith entirely.