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Follow the Money
On sale
23rd February 2023
Price: £25
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
‘This is a brilliant book. Buy it, read it and weep’ The Times
‘The antidote to naivety that our political class needs’ Sunday Times, Book of the Week
‘A treasure trove of killer facts’ Guardian
‘Read it, absorb it, and understand how the country works’ Laura Kuenssberg
‘If you want to understand why crazy politics routinely trumps economic rationality in government choices, read this’ Robert Peston
Paul Johnson and the enormously respected Institute for Fiscal Studies aim to hold Government to account – without which politicians will get away with their half-truths, elisions and dubious claims. This is a forensic examination – by the man best placed to do so – of the way the state raises and spends £1 trillion of our money every year. To follow the money. To provide an explanation, of where that money comes from and where it goes to, how that has changed and how it needs to change.
Government decisions determine the welfare of the poor and the elderly, the state of the health service, the effectiveness of our children’s education, and how prepared we are for the future: whether that is a pandemic or global warming. As a society, we are a reflection of what the government spends.
Johnson looks at what happened following the financial crisis of 2008-09 and the austerity years that followed. He examines the way that the government tackled the economy during Covid – when the UK budget shot up to over a trillion for the first time – and he analyses prospects for our future as we grapple with looming recession and the cost of living crisis.
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Reviews
Paul Johnson's sharp and thorough Follow the Money is based on an idea so clear that it's surprising nobody has thought of it before... an energetic and angry book, charged with a strong sense of frustration
This book is the antidote to naivety that our political class needs. Anyone, in fact, who has strong views about how society should be run would benefit from reading it, because every political ambition costs money and as Johnson writes, "someone has to pay for all this"... The story he tells may leave you reeling... Johnson's buoyant yet acerbic style will keep you engaged. The sobering realities he lays out are peppered with entertaining asides
Readers interested in this subject could hardly hope for a better-qualified author... It should be compulsory reading for every MP and prospective government minister... packed full of interesting data and analysis... The real value of this book lies in the fact that Johnson does go far beyond the usual IFS mission, setting out his own agenda for the future
[A] powerful dissection of the stupidities of how we organise taxing and spending
Fire and passion, combined with the facts. Every politician should get a copy, as the tales of short-sighted, election-fixated, cowardly decision-making are so depressing. And your way forward looks so blindingly sensible.
So gripping and horrifying that it should probably come with a trigger warning: readers may find the content concerning the state of their country's governance upsetting... Given its subject matter, the book is a surprisingly easy read. That's thanks to Johnson's clear, witty prose. Few other writers could produce such a palatable explanation of the system of local government finance or make their readers guffaw over the details of VAT collection... This is a brilliant book. Buy it, read it and weep
Read it, absorb it, and understand how the country works. Johnson uses his talent for crunching the complex into the comprehensible to produce a cheerfully skeptical guide to the British state, revealing it's wisdom and idiocy, and where our money really goes.
This is an important book by the economist who has set the terms of so much political debate over the past decade. If you want to understand why crazy politics routinely trumps economic rationality in government choices, read this.
Follow the Money is essential reading
Erudite and informative
A treasure trove of killer facts
Paul Johnson - the oracle of fiscal - has provided the perfect guide through this dense thicket of fiscal facts and fictions, both explaining the hard choices we now face and why, as citizens, it matters that we understand and act wisely when making them
Readable and entertaining... Johnson pulls no punches in his new book on the public finances which charts Government public policy failures