Book Review: "The Establishment" by Owen Jones

Owen Jones is a familiar name to anyone who pays attention to the winged stratosphere of the political internet. But his book The Establishment, I have to admit, has been sitting around in my drawer for around two months (please don't hate me). I even picked it up at one point in these months intending to read it only to get side-tracked by another book. Eventually though, you will be glad to learn that I turned to Owen Jones' 'bestseller' and 'phenomenon' sooner or later and that's why we're here. I think many of the points in this book seem rather obvious and the writing sometimes drags points on longer than they are welcome, but it is still an interesting read.

First and foremost I think the title speaks for itself in the fact that this is a political critique of power and how it operates. It is seemingly centralised to modern Britain and yet, it is interconnected with our past. There is a small and connected elite that works across politics, media and business (and according to the author also includes in some ways, the Church of England) who have a vast amount of control over how and why decisions are made. They are of course, made to protect their own interests. When the book was published, I can imagine this was still an emerging concept but today, I mean I would believe in any conspiracy theory at this point since the rich are basically consuming children. I don't think Owen Jones or his book saw that one coming.

The media maintains the establishment's sense of power. This, again, is a fairly obvious point. Media outlets often push ideas that align with political interests - something that we all know by now. However, one thing I have often heard about the BBC (especially in the book On 1984 by DJ Taylor) is that they are so intertwined with the establishment that they can basically not be trusted to report truthfully on any singular bit of information. It is ridiculous how ingrained it is and yet, people swallow it up every single day like it is normal news. The marginalisation of dissenting voices is something Owen Jones covers in the book and something, again, the BBC does very well. The shaping of public opinion is very real and so, what we understand if we keep watching these news-shows is what the establishment would want us to understand.

One of the themes in the book is the lack of accountability and that seems to be a big part of why the establishment gets away with everything: because they are the establishment and nobody is going to hold them accountable. They are rarely prosecuted in the same way for misconducts, failures and/or irresponsiblities in the same way that the public are. They constantly throw people under the bus, do press conferences as damage control and ultimately, avoid any consequences for their actions through deflecting and diluting the damage that has been done. This has now snowballed since the book was first published to an enitre public, no matter which wing you are on politically, who are distrusting of government institutions.

One of the people featuring constantly in this book is David Cameron, the former Prime Minister of the UK. Owen Jones shows us that many of the decisions he made throughout his time as PM seem to align more with the interests of the elite rather than those of the public. I think anyone who lived some formative years (14+) through this time would be able to make sense of how Cameron was basically the mouthpiece for a much larger system - a much more elite and wealthy group of people. The things he did in office have basically dug us further into the neoliberal hellscape of free-market capitalism, but have also put our most vulnerable people at risk. The enriching of the current elitist power structure is a real problem and Cameron is one of it's main perpetrators.

When it comes to maintaining the status quo, I think it's obvious enough to say that there are interconnected institutions doing it. Be that as it may, I think we have also come a long way since the 'British Establishment' and have realised that it is much, much bigger than Owen Jones predicted that it could be. Though he states that things like independent journalism and public pressure could possibly turn the tide, we sit here still entrenched in this mess with a mess that includes stuff which is so, so much worse than simply David Cameron making everyone's lives miserable. The picture of Modern Britain might be so much more in the proverbial hole than initially thought but if you want to know how it became 'a thing' then this is the book you want to read first.