So you’re Big Cheese himself (just imagine, we know we have sitting in his chair a couple of times). You set up a publishing company with the aim to focus mainly on political non-fiction, which sounds like a fairly reasonable ambition. Within a short space of time of having this company you commission some rather big titles, which isn’t entirely unexpected, but still a great bonus. Then your books start to affect real political events and be mentioned by some rather big names in national political circles. Well, that’s just a rather brilliant surprise.
If you’ve done this role-play-as-Big-Cheese thing correctly, you must be pretty happy right now.
Earlier we told you of how Brian Jones’s Failing Intelligence is being used as evidence in the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry and today Chuka Umunna quoted former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws’s book 22 Days In May in a House of Commons Treasury Committee meeting (which you can watch here, roughly 16 minutes and 5 seconds in). Now imagine you’re everyone here at Biteback, because we can tell you, we’re pretty happy too.
22 Days In May is the intimate and detailed account of some of the most crucial days in modern political history, the forming of the coalition, from a man at the heart of the negotiations and a key witness to the subsequent fallout, as the government pulled itself together and started making plans for the future.
It was exactly these plans that Umunna was addressing as he questioned Chancellor George Osborne about the flexibility of his fiscal plan for the coming years. The committee member drew upon Laws’s book, which seemed to disagree with Osborne’s own views of the events that helped form our current economic situation and Osborne’s forecast itself.
Basically, our titles are big and important and stuff. Laws’s book offers the full picture of the transition between governments, the moments that are still echoing into the decisions being made today by some of the most powerful political figures in the country.
22 Days In May is available to buy now in paperback for £9.99 and e-book format for £4.60.