David Walker

Polly Toynbee

*Includes updated post-election material.* The NHS devastated without so much as a by-your-leave; Gen Y hung out to dry; legal aid cut for the vulnerable; social housing on the brink of collapse . . . Cameron has been busy. Margaret Thatcher sold off the nationalised industries, her political heirs are intent on leaving an even more radical legacy - selling off the state itself. Written with their trademark precision and passion, Toynbee and Walker reveal how in four short years a party that failed to win a Commons majority has been devastatingly effective. Blending polls and statistics with moving human stories from Taunton to Teesside, Sydenham to Sheffield, Cameron's Coup shows the alarming reversal in decades of social progress. As Toynbee and Walker argue, it has been nothing short of a revolution. And they ask the pressing question: are these changes irrevocable? This is essential reading for anyone who cares about their country.

How the Tories took Britain to the Brink

Cameron's Coup

Compassionate, caring, green: this is how David Cameron presented himself before the election. Once in Downing Street, he threw off his disguise. The laid-back old-school Tory emerged as the leader of a party on a break-neck mission to fulfil Margaret Thatcher's vision. Polly Toynbee and David Walker, previously sharp dissectors of the Blair and Brown record, report that despite confusion and economic failure the Tories core commitment is unchanged. Looking in detail at the government's policies during their first two years in power, Toynbee and Walker warn in this lively analysis that by the next election the welfare state may be in irrecoverable ruins - unless the Tory mission to downsize and diminish the publish realm is brought down first by Cameron's incompetence.

Cameron at Half-Time

Dogma and Disarray

Britain has the lowest social spending and the highest poverty in Europe. As the income gap between top and bottom has widened, so social mobility has shuddered to a halt. The low-paid are caught in an economic double bind that victimises them and shames the rest of us.

Life in Low-pay Britain

Hard Work

The authors compare the pledge made in the Blair manifesto with the government's actions, seeking to establish which groups have had their interests served, and which have been sidelined. They seek to provide a comprehensive and fair-minded report on the achievements and failures of New Labour.

Did Things Get Better?

What is the state? And what's it ever done for you? More than you think. The state houses us, educates us, employs us, protects us on the street and in the wider world. It is the country we created together, and a part of our national identity. However, in recent years there has been a systematic and covert attack on the state that has turned us all against it - the government have depleted funding and resources, and mounted an ideological assault on the public sector through the media. Toynbee and Walker travelled around Great Britain gathering the voices of the people who make up the state: nurses and patients, teachers and parents, policemen and civilians. This book is your chance to hear their side of the story. The story they tell is one of dismemberment across our nation state: a fragmented NHS, a reduced police force, divided schools and a vulnerable military. In Dismembered, it becomes clear that this attack on the state is an attack on each and every one of us, for our peace and productivity as a country depend upon a strong state. DISMEMBERED lays bare the deliberate dismantling of the public sector and its consequences. Our post-Brexit well-being and prosperity are now at stake.

Polly Toynbee

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