Pan Mac lands Freedman’s deep dive into Britain’s broken institutions in ‘substantial’ pre-empt

Pan Macmillan has acquired Failed State: Why Britain’s Institutions are Broken and How We Fix Them by Sam Freedman.

Mike Harpley, publishing director, acquired British and Commonwealth rights from James Pullen at The Wylie Agency in a “substantial” pre-empt. Pan Macmillan will publish in hardback, e-book and audio in late 2024.

The synopsis outlines: “Britain feels increasingly broken. It’s harder than ever to get a GP appointment. Burglaries go unpunished. Wages have been stagnant for years, even as the cost of housing rises inexorably. There are lots of candidates for blame: Boris Johnson; Rishi Sunak; the last Labour government; Brexit. But it’s not due to any individual, group, or specific error of judgement. Politicians can make things better or worse, but even the best are constrained by our state institutions.

“These core building blocks of our politics – No.10 Downing Street, the Treasury, Parliament, the Civil Service, local government – were never designed, they evolved slowly over time. Once able to adapt to a smaller, less centralised, state, they now cannot cope with the problems of the modern world. Only by digging below the surface, understanding the history of these institutions, how they’ve failed to adjust, and how politicians have often made things worse, can we get a grip on the difficulties facing Britain today."

Freedman is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and a senior adviser to Ark Schools. He has spent his career working in different policy-focused roles around Westminster, including as an adviser to David Cameron when he was leader of the opposition and three years at the Department for Education as a senior policy adviser to Michael Gove. He writes about policy and politics for publications including the Financial Times, the Sunday Times, the Guardian and New Statesman.

He said: “During a career spent working in and around Westminster, I’ve become increasingly frustrated at how poorly our core political institutions work. The public agrees – we have the lowest levels of trust in politics we’ve ever seen. Most of those working in the system – politicians, advisers, senior civil servants – agree too. Almost no one is happy with the status quo yet attention is always drawn to the messy consequences of these failings, like the NHS crisis or Brexit paralysis, rather than the true causes. The aim of this book is to reveal the faulty wiring that has to be fixed to solve our other problems, and set out the changes needed.”

Harpley said: “Sam is one of the most insightful commentators on British politics today. He has built up an enviable and influential following by eschewing tribalism for reasoned, witty, evidence-led analysis that always brings something new to the table. This will be essential reading for concerned citizens across the UK.”