Governing Britain

Power, Politics and the Prime Minister

Patrick Diamond

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781780765815
• eBook ISBN: 9780857734679
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Number Ten Downing Street and the Cabinet Office are at the apex of power in British government, but relatively little is known about the day to day functioning of these great institutions of state. With an unprecedented level of access, and wide-ranging interviews from former ministers, senior civil servants and political advisers, Patrick Diamond examines the administrative and political machinery serving the Prime Minister, and considers how it evolved from the early years of New Labour to the election of the Coalition Government in 2010. Drawing on previously unpublished material, Diamond provides a unique analysis which considers the continuing power of the civil service, the tensions between permanent officials and political aides, and the hard grind of achieving policy change from the centre in Whitehall. By exploring the ideological beliefs underpinning the policy-making process and in illuminating the importance of the British Political Tradition in shaping the institutions and practice of statecraft, this book reveals the contemporary realities of government and democracy in practice.

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Glossary of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Governance, Power and Politics in the Contemporary British State
• Part I: The Theory of Governing Britain
• 1. The British Political Tradition and Whitehall Reform
• 2. The Westminster Model and the Whitehall Paradigm
• 3. Interpreting Continuity and Change in the Labour Party’s Statecraft
• 4. The Core Executive, Governance and Power
• Part II: The Practice of Governing Britain
• 5. Mapping the Case Studies of the ‘Primeval Policy Soup’
• 6. The Centre and Departments in the Policy-making Process
• 7. Government and Governance: Patterns of Continuity and Change in the Whitehall Paradigm
• 8. The Role of Tradition and Path Dependency: New Labour in Power
• 9. Conclusion: Power, Policy and the Modern State
• Appendix I: Breakdown of Interviewees
• Appendix II: Policy Governance under New Labour: Delivery Fields in Academies, Family-Nurse Partnerships, and the National Economic Council
• Appendix III: ‘Renewal and Strategic Audit’: Memorandum to the Prime Minister
• Appendix IV: New Labour’s Critique of Whitehall and Proposals for Reforming the Centre of Government: Memorandum to the Prime Minister June 2000
• Notes
• Bibliography