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Title: Failure in British Government: The Politics of the Poll Tax by David Butler, Andrew Adonis, Tony Travers ISBN: 0-19-827876-4 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: April, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: Checks and balances
Comment: Failure in British Government: the Politics of the Poll Tax by David Butler, Andrew Adonis, & Tony Travers Anyone who advocates changing our system of government to a parliamentary system should read this book before he sticks his other foot in his mouth. It reads almost like one of Dr. Dörner's experiments. It is a story of how some seemingly intelligent politicos come up with an idea that can charitably be called assinine and push idea right through all the so-called checks and balances of government in order to make it policy. Neither the Opposition, the House of Lords, the Monarch, the press, nor the civil service lifted a finger to stop it. Indeed, the only opposition officially given to the poll tax was from the fringes of the far left. Nevertheless the poll tax of 1990 produced the same effects as the poll tax of 1381: riots in London (the same parts of London even), widespread tax evasion, government finances in shambols, and the end of some promising careers. "What a botch up. What a bloomer. What a gaffe, bungle, goof, fluff, fiasco, boner, clanger, howler and flop. What a fatheaded, boneheaded, dunderheaded, muttonheaded, knuckleheaded, chuckleheaded, puddingheaded, jobernowled wash-out of a cock-up," opined the editor of the Sunday Times with typical understatement. It was so awful that some of its participants defend their actions by pleading incompetence and its leader, Thatcher, still hasn't learned the lessons from the disaster. (The lesson: Progress comes not from implementing bad, old ideas but bad, new ideas.)