Control How we lost it and how to take it back
It’s hard to shake the feeling that we’ve lost control of the things that matter most in our lives. Our politics is fragmenting, the world is less stable than ever before and the economy seems to operate solely for the enrichment of distant shareholders. Across western democracies, people are feeling that life is getting harder and more unfair. In the face of such uncertainty, how can we regain our autonomy and rebuild a brighter, fairer future?
In Control, Claire Ainsley argues this profound loss of agency over the forces shaping our lives is the central challenge of our time. Endless pressures have left citizens increasingly disenfranchised, and in this gap between expectation and reality, trust is eroded, anxiety spirals and populist narratives gain traction by exploiting society’s base fears.
Drawing on psychology, political strategy and Claire’s own experience of policymaking in Westminster, this timely and arresting book proposes a new philosophy of control to better equip us – as individuals and as a society – to take on the myriad challenges of our time. We can only break the deadlock and navigate our collective malaise by taking back control from all-powerful markets and hamstrung states, unlocking our individual freedoms in the process.
Robust in its analysis and hopeful in its proposals, Control offers a practical roadmap for rebuilding trust in democracy by putting us back in the driving seat of our own lives.
Reviews
“Hugely ambitious and genuinely radical, Claire Ainsley asks the very biggest of questions about what’s gone wrong with our politics. If there is an important lesson from the Starmer era that the Burnham government needs to learn, here it is.”
Andrew Marr, LBC radio presenter and editor at large at the New Statesman
“A fascinating and timely analysis of the sense of helplessness and crisis that broke politics – and of how voters and politicians can take back control.”
Rachel Sylvester, political editor at The Observer
“A powerful manifesto for our anxiety-ridden age, and a much-needed rallying cry to reclaim individual and communal agency in an era of uncertainty.”
Mehreen Khan, economics editor at The Times
“Deploying a rare combination of policy expertise, political savvy and historical perspective, Claire Ainsley presents a pathbreaking account of the loss of control experienced throughout the West and offers a concrete plan for restoring democratic agency.”
William A. Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and columnist at the Wall Street Journal
“Control is the great enigma of our time. Everybody offers us more of it: politicians, companies, NGOs, even your washing machine. But nobody seems capable of delivering – we grasp at proffered levers of control only to find that they are made of rubber. Claire Ainsley draws on her extensive experience in politics to do two invaluable things: explain why the world seems to be spinning out of control and offer clever ways of transforming the illusion of control into reality.”
Adrian Wooldridge, global business columnist at Bloomberg Opinion
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Buy this book
- Hardback, 320 pages
- ISBN: 9781837360895
- 3 November 2026
- £20.00
- eBook
- ISBN: 9781837360918
- 3 November 2026
- £14.99