Ian Dunt
Policy decisions now move faster than the institutions meant to explain them. Boards and public affairs teams are asked to price political risk in real time, yet most Westminster commentary describes personalities rather than the machinery that actually produces the outcomes. The gap between what leaders need to understand and what mainstream political coverage delivers is widening.
Ian Dunt is a British political journalist and author who helps organisations read Westminster as a working system, not a weather report, and turn that reading into usable political risk judgement.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Ian Dunt
- He explains the mechanics of UK government, not the gossip: how a bill actually becomes law, where civil service capacity sits, why a policy lands or stalls. Useful to any team pricing regulatory or political exposure.
- His book How Westminster Works… and Why It Doesn’t became a Sunday Times bestseller and is used as a reference text by people who work in and around Parliament. That is a stronger credibility signal than a television appearance count.
- He brings a second, distinct intellectual track on liberalism, populism and the condition of democratic institutions, drawn from How To Be A Liberal and the Origin Story podcast. Boards thinking about long-horizon political risk get more than a UK briefing.
- He writes and speaks for decision-makers, not commentators. The register is direct, argued, commercially relevant, and stays away from partisan theatre.
Biography highlights
- Columnist for The i Paper, one of the UK’s main daily political columns.
- Former editor of politics.co.uk, the long-running UK politics analysis site.
- Author of How Westminster Works… and Why It Doesn’t (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2023), a Sunday Times bestseller.
- Author of How To Be A Liberal (Canbury, 2020) and Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now? (Canbury, 2016).
- Co-host of Origin Story with Dorian Lynskey, and a founding voice on Oh God, What Now? and The Bunker, all Podmasters productions.
- Appointed chair of the editorial board of New Humanist magazine in 2025.
Biography
Most UK political coverage describes the weather over Westminster. Dunt describes the building. How Westminster Works… and Why It Doesn’t, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 2023 and an immediate Sunday Times bestseller, walked readers through the actual wiring: Number 10, the Cabinet Office, the civil service, the Commons, the Lords, the party machines, and the specific failure points in each. That is the unusual thing about him as a political voice. The subject is institutions, not personalities.
Before the book, a long editorship of politics.co.uk gave him the beat, and a column at The i Paper gave him the public platform he still uses. He writes in plain, argued English, not lobby shorthand, which is part of why the book crossed over from political readers to the general ones.
The second strand of his work sits further back from the news cycle. How To Be A Liberal, published by Canbury in 2020, is a history of liberal thought and a defence of it against nationalism and authoritarian revival. Origin Story, co-hosted with the journalist Dorian Lynskey on Podmasters, takes that same method, trace an idea to its root, then show what it has become, across subjects from neoliberalism to conspiracy theory. It is the part of his work that serious boards find most useful when the question is not what happens next week but what kind of political environment the organisation will be operating in for the next decade.
In 2025 he was appointed chair of the editorial board of New Humanist, the 140-year-old rationalist magazine, which sits comfortably inside that longer-arc intellectual project.
Key speaking topics
- UK politics and Westminster governance
- Political and regulatory risk for business
- UK-EU relations after Brexit
- Populism and the condition of democratic institutions
- Liberalism, public reason, and the information environment
- Media disruption and misinformation
Ideal for
- Boards, executive teams and public affairs leads exposed to UK regulatory and political risk.
- Risk, compliance and government relations functions inside multinationals operating in the UK and Europe.
- Investor and membership audiences who want a serious read on Westminster rather than a news recap.
Audience outcomes
- A working mental model of how UK government actually produces decisions, and where it breaks.
- Sharper judgement on which political stories matter commercially and which are noise.
- A clearer view of where populist politics is driving institutional change across Europe and the UK.
- An informed frame for conversations with policymakers, regulators and own-government-relations teams.
Talks
A working read on UK-EU relations, where the political energy on both sides is moving, and the implications for regulated industries.
Key takeaways:
- How Downing Street, Parliament and Brussels are currently interacting, and where the leverage sits.
- Which regulatory divergences are likely to matter commercially over the next parliament.
- How to brief a board on UK political risk without overclaiming certainty.
On populist pressure on the WTO, the EU and the wider architecture of multilateral governance, and what institutional resilience actually looks like under sustained attack.
Key takeaways:
- The pattern of attack on multilateral institutions and who is driving it.
- Where these institutions have shown resilience and where they have not.
- What the erosion of the rules-based order means for firms with cross-border exposure.
On the breakdown of trust between business and the UK political class, and what a constructive reset would look like.
Key takeaways:
- Why the traditional business-government compact weakened during and after Brexit.
- What political actors now expect from business voices, and what they punish.
- Practical positioning for firms that need to be heard in Whitehall without becoming a target.
On media disruption, the collapse of shared facts, and the knock-on effects for policy-making and corporate communication.
Key takeaways:
- How the information environment has changed the mechanics of public debate.
- The implications for corporate reputation, crisis response and policy advocacy.
- What a serious institutional response to misinformation looks like.
Drawing on How To Be A Liberal and Origin Story, a structured look at where populist politics is gaining ground, where it is stalling, and what that means for democratic institutions.
Key takeaways:
- Common features of populist movements across different national contexts.
- The institutional defences that have proved effective, and the ones that have not.
- How boards should think about long-horizon political risk in liberal democracies.
Videos
Testimonials
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Asia Pacific | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Europe | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Middle East & Africa | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| South America | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| United Kingdom | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US East Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US West Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Virtual | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |