This has been collecting dust on my bookshelves for years. It's based upon a popular BBC comedy series in the 1980s about a cabinet minister all too ably er... managed by the bureaucrats who purportedly serve under him. I think my problem with this book is I know both too much and too little. On the "too little" side, I've never seen the program. I get the feeling there are all these subtle jokes and ironies whizzing by above my head. I'm also not British and have spent only a few weeks in England in my teens. Most of my knowledge about British politics and their parliamentary system comes from reading Archer's novel First Among Equals. Again, I have this sense of acid zingers landing upon my armor of ignorance and dissolving before they can penetrate.
And the "too much" part? Well, I worked in campaigns, political science was my major and I interned in the United States Congress. And alas, the points here haven't dated over the decades and don't miss anything in traveling over the Atlantic. I knew exactly where this was going too much of the time; it's as if I knew the punchlines before any ever landed. I find it too true, too very much the real world so that despite the wit and dry humor I can see in it I just couldn't find it funny. My bad. This is rated so low because of my personal reaction to it, which was to depress me more than anything. Not because it's not well-written and the characters well-drawn. If you're young enough to still feel inspired about politics or old enough to be so cynical it doesn't hurt anymore, you might enjoy this. Judging from the other reviews, most do.
