The New Few: Or a Very British Oligarchy - Softcover

This is a timely book...Wise and entertaining - Guardian

Ferdinand Mount gives a lucid account of political decay...This book should be compulsory reading for the cabinet - Spectator

[A] penetrating study of modern oligarchy - Independent on Sunday

The level of reward to top people exposed by the crunch is one of the most unexpected features of modern times. What is even more astonishing is that is persists in the face of disaster. As this excellent book hits the streets, a serious shareholder revolt looms at Barclays - Daily Telegraph

Beautifully written and infused with a slow-burning anger...Much to agree with, yet more to admire - New Statesman

Polemicists come and go, but Mount is one we should heed. A distinguished literary critic and novelist, he was also a perceptive political commentator for many years... Now he takes a double-barrelled aim at what he calls the corrosion of capitalism and the erosion of democracy... Overall, the message of this heart felt cri de coeur is that equality is back on the agenda - Mail on Sunday

This thoughtful book elegantly underlines, any system in which the wealthy are rewarded for failure is not a competition. And when the rest of us are left to pick up the bill, it's certainly not free - Observer

A rage against inequality. Ferdinand Mount has written a gripping polemic that skewers everyone from greedy boses to arrogant bankers, and offer lessons to readers of every political stripe... Exhilarating... Mount delineates the reasons for public disillusion brilliantly, and points his accusing finger in the right directions - The Times

Why is the gap between the rich and poor growing? Why are the political parties hollowed-out shells? Ferdinand Mount identifies a British oligarchy on that needs to be dismantled now - Guardian

Mount's book is a brilliant attempt to import rigour and coherence; indeed, the case is better made than anyone in the administration... It demands respect and has to be read - Independent

An exhilarating polemicist, never a whinger, he laces radical prescription with arresting phrases. And, though he deplores the rampant rise in inequality, he hasn't entirely lost hope that the coalition government might reverse it - Intelligent Life

Mount is true democratic radical. His book is original and on occasion brilliant... David Cameron could do worse than read his relative's report on the start of the nation. If he acted on a few of its suggestions, he might yet save his premiership from mediocrity - Literary Review

There is not a whiff of rhetoric or sloganeering in his elegant treatise about contemporary Britain - Sunday Telegraph

An elegant attack on inequality in society and how power and wealth are being concentrated in fewer hands --Sunday Times Culture

There is not a whiff of rhetoric or sloganeering in his elegant treatise about contemporary Britain... It is an important and timely study, bracingly free of cant...Mount s plea for Britain in which everyone can feel a part not a them and us society riddled with inequality and resentment has the ring of quiet, indisputable truth --Sunday Telegraph

An elegant attack on inequality in society and how power and wealth are being concentrated in fewer hands. --Sunday Times Culture

It might be a mark of our times that the ideas contained in this cogent and gracefully written book can be seen as radical. Without Thatcher, would there be a New Few ? Probably- global capitalism s trends are hard to escape. But they might have been a smaller and less odious phenomenon, and have therefore given the author less to be angry about --Ian Jack, Guardian 30/3

This was supposed to be the era when democracy came into its own, but instead power and wealth in Britain have slowly been consolidated the hands of a small elite, while the rest of the country struggles financially and switches off politically. We are now ruled by a gang of fat-cats with fingers in every pie who squabble for power among themselves while growing richer. Bored with watching corrupt politicians jockeying for power, ordinary Britons are feeling disconnected from politics and increasingly cynical about the back-scratching relationship between politicians and big business. The New Fewshows us what has led to this point, and asks the critical questions: whyhas Britain become a more unequal society over the past thirty years? Whyhave the banks been bailed out with taxpayers' money, while bankers are still receiving huge bonuses? Why have those responsible not been held accountable for the financial crash? Why has power in Britain become so concentrated in the hands of corrupt politicians who have been exposed cheating their constituents in the expenses scandal? Despite this bleak diagnosis, there are solutions to the rise of the new ruling class in the modern West. The New Few sets out some of the ways in which we can restore our democracy, bringing back real accountability to British business and fairness to our society.