Two new releases for you today, and whilst one addresses one of the most salient issues of the day, the other takes us back to the days of World War II; either way, they’re both brilliant reads, and I’m not just saying that because I’m biased. It’s true. Don’t believe me? Get your hands on a copy of each book at a reduced price (smooth) and see for yourself!
1940. Andrée De Jongh – the Little Cyclone – was a young Belgian artist making her way in the world. Then the phoney war came to an end and the Germans marched into Brussels. Inspired by Edith Cavell, the British nurse shot dead during the First World War, De Jongh found herself nursing wounded Allied servicemen. Still, she was determined to find other ways of striking back at the invaders.
She set up the Comet Line to smuggle trapped soldiers and airmen through France and across the Pyrenees into Spain. When the first group never made it, the Little Cyclone did the job herself: she marched up to the British consulate in Bilbao in August 1941 with a Scottish soldier – and insisted she could bring many more. MI6 was convinced she was a German spy, but the Little Cyclone got her way and her escape route saved the lives of more than 800 Allied servicemen.
Such heroism came at an enormous cost. One hundred and fifty-six members of the Comet Line died, the majority of them in Nazi concentration camps.
Little Cyclone is a tale of tragedy and triumph, a remarkably human and inspiring story that rivals the most dramatic of thrillers.
Burning Our Money: How Government Wastes Our Cash and What We Can Do About It, by Mike Denham, available for £10.99 (RRP £12.99)
Britain is in the midst of a fierce battle over government spending. With debts mounting rapidly, the £700 billion annual bill is no longer sustainable. But cuts face a wall of opposition, with dire warnings that they will ravage our society: hospital waiting lists will grow, schools will close and the poor will tumble into a new Dickensian abyss.
Yet much of what the government currently spends is wasted, and public sector performance is often woeful. In Burning Our Money, Mike Denham casts a critical eye over the services we receive for our hard-earned cash, and finds them radically – often shockingly – wanting. For all the media insistence that the NHS is ‘the envy of the world’, it stacks up poorly against European healthcare systems. For all our apparently soaring exam grades, our children significantly underperform their future competitors in China, Korea and elsewhere. And for all our hand-wringing about abolishing poverty, our huge welfare system actually damages many of the poor it’s supposed to help.
Drawing on extensive research and up-to-the-minute reporting, Burning Our Money comprehensively debunks the myth that more public spending means better public services, and shows how we can – and must – get more for less.