2008-06-06 Not so much a 'wake-up call 'as the last trumpet

This is the most serious book I have ever read - and I am over 70 and relatively well-educated and informed. The Epilogue - and especially the third from final paragraph - should be read, marked, learned and inwardly digested by all thinking people from sixth-formers to geriatrics like me. If I am left with one thought after reading this meticulously documented catalogue of ignorant and disgraceful behaviour, it is how badly our UK legislators and officials have performed over the past 30-40 years and how little they deserve, or have deserved, their salaries, expenses and pensions. All these things have happened on their watch - a watch we relied on them to keep faithfully and conscientously. Perhaps in this story lies the real reason why we have, maybe unconsciously until now, come to despise and mistrust them all.