The royal family is the original Coronation Street – a long-running soap opera with the occasional real coronation thrown in. Its members have become celebrities, like upmarket versions of film stars and footballers. But they have also become a byword for arrogance, entitlement, hypocrisy and indifference to the gigantic amount of public money wasted by them.The monarchy itself is an important part of our constitution with considerable influence on the kind of nation we are. Yet yo...

"Anyone can commit a murder, but it takes an artist to commit a suicide." – Old KGB saying The high-profile death of government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly twenty-one years ago, amid the tumult of Britain's controversial invasion of Iraq, plunged the New Labour government into crisis and led to the resignation of the BBC's director general. An informal inquiry chaired by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding Kelly's death cleared the government of wrongdoing but was widely di...

In his irreverent and uncompromising bestseller … And What Do You Do?, former Minister of State and Privy Counsellor Norman Baker laid bare what the British royal family didn't want us to know, namely its extravagant use of public money and general bad behaviour.This sensational sequel goes even deeper in its analysis of royal finances, examining where the money comes from, how it is used and what has changed with the arrival of a new king.Amongst many other things...

For eighteen years, Norman Baker was one of the most distinctive, outspoken and campaigning members of the House of Commons, uncovering the biggest parliamentary scandals of recent times. MPs' expenses, the death of David Kelly, and the ill-fated flight BA 149 were all investigated by the man Nick Clegg referred to as 'a cross between Gandhi and a battering ram'. Against the Grain is Baker's fascinating account of Westminster and constituency life, from the absurd to the deadly serious. Hi...

... And What Do You Do? is a hard-hitting analysis of the royal family, exposing its extravagant use of public money and the dubious behaviour of some among its ranks.In this book, former government minister Norman Baker argues that the British public deserves better than this puerile diet. … And What Do You Do? is a hard-hitting analysis of the royal family, exposing its extravagant use of public money and the highly dubious behaviour of some among its ranks, whilst being critical...

In his irreverent and uncompromising bestseller … And What Do You Do?, former Minister of State and Privy Counsellor Norman Baker laid bare what the British royal family didn't want us to know, namely its extravagant use of public money and general bad behaviour. This sensational sequel goes even deeper in its analysis of royal finances, examining where the money comes from, how it is used and what has changed with the arrival of a new king. Amongst many other things, it reveals how a fami...

In 1755, Major General Edward Braddock and two army regiments set out from Alexandria with the objective of capturing Fort Duquesne, near present-day Pittsburgh. To transport their sizable train of artillery and wagons, they first had to build a road across the rugged Appalachian Mountains. It was almost 289 treacherous miles from Alexandria, Virginia, by way of Fort Cumberland in Maryland and on to the French fort; the road they built was one of the most impressive military engineering ac...

Human Smoke delivers a closely textured, deeply moving indictment of the treasured myths that have romanticized much of the 1930s and '40s. Incorporating meticulous research and well-documented sources—including newspaper and magazine articles, radio speeches, memoirs, and diaries—the book juxtaposes hundreds of interrelated moments of decision, brutality, suffering, and mercy. Vivid glimpses of political leaders and their dissenters illuminate and examine the gradual, horrifying ...

The aim of this book is to make better sense of a long, complex, messy, change process through the stories of those who were involved. Over fifty participants were interviewed during the course of the study and their uniquely personal perspectives have been woven into a compelling story of organisational change. This book describes their ingenuity and effort in bringing about change that they and their organisation valued. Between 2009 and 2012, Southampton Solent University (UK) engaged i...

"This magnificent book reinforces Norman Friedman's unparalleled reputation as a peerless author of maritime topics."— Australian Naval InstituteGradually evolving from the masted steam frigates of the mid-nineteenth century, the first modern cruiser is not easy to define—but for the sake of this book, historian Norman Friedman takes as a starting point Iris and Mercury of 1875. They were the Royal Navy's first steel-built warships; were designed primarily...

"A comprehensive survey of the design history and development of the Royal Navy's greyhounds of the sea."— WARSHIPS MagazineSince World War II, the old categories of destroyer and frigate have tended to merge, a process that this book traces back to the radically different "Tribal" class destroyers of 1936. It deals with the development of all the modern destroyer classes that fought the war, looks at the emergency programs that produced vast numbers of tr...

A history of the early days of Royal Navy destroyers, and how they evolved to meet new military threats.In the late nineteenth century the advent of the modern torpedo woke the Royal Navy to a potent threat to its domination, not seriously challenged since Trafalgar. For the first time a relatively cheap weapon had the potential to sink the largest, and costliest, exponents of sea power.Not surprisingly, Britain's traditional rivals invested heavily in the ...