Brilliant overview of the political landscape of Britain since the 2000s, Hindmoor makes the somewhat dry subject of politics into a page turning thriller. As someone looking to increase my knowledge of politics it was a fantastic starting point to piece together and add background to the headlines over the past quarter century.

It was with a sense of masochism I delved into Haywire, a modern history of British politics from 2000 - 2023. We've just had an election which leaves some of this now moot, or at least consigned to the dustbin of history thank goodness, and there are a couple of predictions near the end (not least the political system no longer delivering large majorities), that I am sure will be edited for second / paperback edition. When I ordered this I assumed, partially because of the title, that this was actually a history from 2010 to the present, and it is a little odd coming into the Blair years three years in. Hindmoo does a good job justifying this period as a coherent set of crises that the government of whatever flavour didn't deal with particularly well, but in the process feeds into the criticism that all politicians are the same, one which he sees is at the heart of some of the problems of our party political system. Indeed whilst this is a very long book, he resists delving deeply into the personalities or driving motivations of his lead actors particularly. It seems odd to talk about Blair without mentioning his later Catholicism, or how Iraq seemed like a crusade for him, and whilst you get a solid sense of Boris Johnson from his chaotic actions, there isn't really any attempt to contextualise that within a chaotic career.

That said with a book like this, criticism is the default mode from the reader. Things don't quite happen how you remember them or for reasons other than the ones Hindmoor ascribes. It is first and foremost an attempt to wrestle the various themes of the last twenty-three years into a coherent narrative, even though history doesn't really unfold like that. COVID is concurrent with the last year of Brexit negotiations, which is mentioned several times, but the process of that happening isn't always laid on as thick as perhaps it should. But there are a few aims here, he doesn't just want to look back and be critical of the (many many) mistakes made, indeed there is a thorough but somewhat threadbare set of suggestions to improve British democracy that I am sure will continue to be ignored by politicians of all stripes. Nevertheless, the value of a book like this is hopefully to show a route to not make the same mistakes again. Should Kier Starmer end up governing too centrally as Blair did, will he pick up on the inevitable endgame of that process? Can it be used to temper political feuds within parties so they work better?

Haywire is interesting partially because it compares the two most recent periods of government, and identifies many of their problems as procedural (and truth be told sometimes overcorrections from previous governments). I think it is a little too harsh on Labour, and if anything a little too soft on the Tories, particularly post-Brexit. But then I would say that that is where my politics lie. The success here is to tell two stories from a relatively neutral viewpoint, identifying flaws without being wholly negative. I am sure it is the first of many modern political histories that will show up, but it does set a pretty high bar.

Haywire is the haywire history of Britain since 2000. It is a detailed and expansive book on the modern history, and politics of Britain.
Hindmoor is persuasive, and I particularly loved his insights about the more recent developments such as Brexit and the MPs’ scandals.
I will revisit this to recompose myself and recommend it to those who would like to hear a clear perspective on the haywire that Britain is today.