Featured book - Robert Peston, “Who Really Runs Britain?”

Robert Peston
Who Really Runs Britain? The Super-rich and how they’re Changing our Lives
Hodder & Stoughton, 2008, 303.30941 PES

The BBC’s Business editor and breaker of Northern Rock’s bad news Robert Peston will be speaking at the RSA on 7 February to mark the publication of his new book, Who Really Runs Britain? The Super-rich and how they’re Changing our Lives.

Both the book and the lecture will outline the lessons Peston has learnt from his time as a business journalist during a time when, as John Lanchester has noted, successive governments have sought to avoid infringing on the money-earning capacity of City bankers since Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe’s 1981 windfall tax on profits.

As Preston outlines in these extracts from the book, favourable tax regimes and lax regulatory frameworks have created an environment where an elite of wealthy individuals and hedge funds are able to earn extraordinary amounts of money and take extraordinary risks, sowing the seeds for the cheap credit regime, the collapse of Northern Rock and the ensuing economic downturn.

To borrow a copy of Who Really Runs Britain? The Super-rich and how they’re Changing our Lives, please contact the RSA Library.