This book does not claim to be a fully researched history nor is it an autobiography or a memoir although personal experience is invoked at intervals to illustrate the narrative from a sometimes participant observer. It can more accurately be described as a polemic and at times the language is vitriolic for which I make no apology. I am genuinely angry as well as sad about how the educated elite of my generation, the baby boomers, have transformed our country for the worse. The first part of the book examines through the prism of my northern working class background our inheritance and the nature of the world in which we grew up and then takes the reader through the ascendancy of Mrs Thatcher, which is crucial in understanding what follows. The second part of the book begins with an analysis of what constitutes the political class and then examines thematically how the new establishment achieved, wasted and abused power at the expense of those they claimed to represent. The final part of the book optimistically entitled Power to the People , argues how power can be reclaimed by the electorate from the arrogant political class which dominates our lives at home and in Europe which has systematically conspired to subvert our once vibrant democracy and destroy our national sovereignty.