The Kingdom to Come

‘Hennessy’s account will long rank as the most candid portrait of how the referendum was experienced in Whitehall … It has the gravitas and sensibility of a diary charting the last days before the outbreak of war, and it’s all strangely thrilling.’
Scottish Review of Books

‘A profound insight into the way in which British politics and the political processes work. It delves into Britain’s constitutional vagaries, the question of whether the UK should adopt a formal constitution, and highlights how Britons of the various and distinct cultures view their own overarching sense of identity’ 
Strategic Policy

‘Slim but revealing’
Bella Caledonia

Peter Hennessy records the run up to the Scottish independence referendum of September 2014 and its immediate aftermath, describing the enormous constitutional building site opened up for the whole of the United Kingdom by the result.

This account of personal impressions by one of the UK’s experts on our unwritten constitution records a critical time when the Act of Union, over 300 years old, was called into question. The Kingdom to Come examines the possible agenda for the remaking of the constitution in the medium and long term.

PETER HENNESSY was educated at Marling School, Stroud; St John’s College, Cambridge; the London School of Economics; and Harvard, where he was a Kennedy Scholar 1971-72. He spent 20 years in journalism with spells on The Times, the Financial Times and The Economist and as a presenter of the BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and sits as an independent crossbench peer in the House of Lords as Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield. He is Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary, University of London.

Also by this author, Establishment and Meritocracy, Reflections Volume 1 and Volume 2, The Complete Reflections, The Power of Civil Servants and The Bonfire of the Decencies.