Winner of the 2015 Orwell Prize for Books

"The essential public good that Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and now Cameron sell is not power stations, or trains, or hospitals. It's the public itself. it's us."

In a little over a generation the bones and sinews of the British economy - rail, energy, water, postal services, municipal housing - have been sold to remote, unaccountable private owners, often from overseas. In a series of brilliant portraits the award-winning novelist and journalist James Meek shows how Britain's common wealth became private, and the impact it has had on us all: from the growing shortage of housing to spiralling energy bills.

Meek explores the human stories behind the incremental privatization of the nation over the last three decades. He shows how, as our national assets are sold, ordinary citizens are handed over to private tax-gatherers, and the greatest burden of taxes shifts to the poorest. In the end, it is not only public enterprises that have become private property, but we ourselves.

Urgent, powerfully written and deeply moving, this is a passionate anatomy of the state of the nation: of what we have lost and what losing it cost us - the rent we must pay to exist on this private island.

How the British government packaged and sold its people to the world

About the Author
James Meek is a contributing editor of the London Review of Books. He is the author of six novels that have published in the UK, US, France and Germany, including The People's Act of Love, that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and won the Ondaatje Prize and Scottish Arts Council Award. We are Now Beginning our Descent won the 2008 Le Prince Maurice Prize and The Heart Broke In was shortlisted for the 2012 Costa Prize. In 2004 he was named the foreign correspondent of the year by the British Press Awards and he contributes regularly to the Guardian, New York Times and International Herald Tribune. www.jamesmeek.net

Reviews
Meek's range, humour and boldness are a joy. * Observer *
One of the country's finest writers. * GQ *
Entertaining, vastly intelligent. * New Yorker *
James Meek's brilliant book, bracing in its detail and sweeping in its scope, makes it clear just how central privatisation is to the story of contemporary Britain: some of it will make you sad, some of it will make you furious, but you are guaranteed to be left feeling that you understand this country much better. -- John Lanchester, author of Whoops!
One activity in which Britain leads the world is privatisation. From Thatcher to Cameron, prime minister after prime minister has flogged off our public assets at rock bottom prices to the private sector. The result has been massive returns for investors and middle men, poorer services for the public - and a downgrading of our entitlements as citizens. All this is detailed by James Meek in a book that stands as one of the most powerful critiques of the mess that is Britain's economy. -- Aditya Chakrabortty, Senior Economics Commentator * Guardian *
A series of essays that document with forensic skill the ruthless and chaotic privatisation of Britain. This is the definitive account of how so much has gone and continue to go wrong with Britain's institutions. Don't read it all at once - it's too depressing. -- Joan Bakewell * Books of the Year, New Statesman *
A Virtuoso [.] mixture of hard-won knowledge and literary flair. * TLS *


Awards
Winner of Orwell Prize 2015.



Book Information
ISBN 9781781682906
Author James Meek
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint Verso Books
Publisher Verso Books
Weight(grams) 366g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 156mm * 19mm