A SYSTEM THAT WORKS
THE PARTY SYSTEM IN GREAT BRITAIN, by Ivor Bulmer-Thomas; Phoenix House, through A. H. and A. W. Reed, New Zealand price 31/6. OST of us were brought up to believe that the party system as. it is known in the United Kingdom and other parts of the Commonwealth was not only democratic but represented the highest form of democracy. Probably all that should be claimed is that, in a country with British social traditions, it works. s The important question _is why it works rather than how it works. But this book gives no answers which would help a student of politics. It is essentially a short sketch on the organisation (continued on next page)
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(continued from previous page) of the Labour and Conservative Parties of Great Britain together with some supplementary glimp3es at history. The author explicitly says that he is not writing of principles or policies, and it is clear from his sententious statements that he has little understanding. One can be grateful that he has kept to organisation only, for the book, within its limits, could be useful as a reference work to the foreign journalist anxious not to make mistakes in describing the working of Britain’s major parties. The author shows how the leader of the Con- | servatives makes decisions on policy, | how the Labour Party Conference makes similar decisions, how the trade unions can outvote the constituency branches of the Labour Party (this is explained with approval), and how Parliament registers decisions made elsewhere. Mr. Ivor Thomas was a Labour M.P. from 1942 to 1949, when he joined the Conservative Party. This apparently is his qualification for authorship of this book. He says it needéd to be written because the last book on the subject was published 50 years ago. The need is still there, and when the book is written it is hoped that it will be done by a political philosopher who can relate the party system to the theory of
the State.
W.B.
S.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 765, 19 March 1954, Page 13
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337A SYSTEM THAT WORKS New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 765, 19 March 1954, Page 13
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