Product DescriptionWhich 50 people made Britain the wreck she is? Which 50 idiots did it? From ludicrous propagandist Alastair Campbell to the Luftwaffe's Hermann Goering and his allies, it's time to name the guilty men and women. Quentin Letts sharpens his nib and stabs them where they deserve it, from tennis player John McEnroe to TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh, the dumbed-down buffoon who put the 'h' in Aspidistra. Margaret Thatcher ruptured our national unity. The creators of East Enders trashed our brand over high tea. Here, he argues, are the people who made our country the ugly, scheming, cheating, beer-ridden bum of the Western world.Here are the fools and knaves and vulgarians who ripped down our British glories and imposed the tawdry and the trite. In a half century, we have gone from end-of-Empire to descent-into-Hell. How did this happen? Whose fault was it? Letts' outrageous pen portraits, some comical, some steaming with anger, include royalty, politicians, artists and even the man who invented the mini-roundabout. Readers will be invited to draft alternative lists. But can any of them be quite as politically incorrect as this?The complete 50 are: Jean and Gareth Adamson; 'Anonymous'; Jeffrey Archer; Kenneth Baker; Ed Balls; Peter Bazalgette; Richard Beeching; John Birt; Frank Blackmore; Tony Blair; David Blunkett; Rhodes Boyson; Gordon Brown; Paul Burrell; James Callaghan; Alastair Campbell; Anthony Crosland; Richard Dawkins and Charles Simonyi; Princess Diana; Andrew Dismore; Greg Dyke; Sir Alex Ferguson; Maurice 'Maus' Gatsonides; Tony Greig; Edward Heath; The Very Rev Ronald Jasper; Graham Kelly; Graham Kendrick; Sir Denys Lasdun; Dame Suzi Leather; John McEnroe; Stephen Marks; Michael Martin; Alun Michael; Rupert Murdoch; John Prescott; Nicholas Ridley; Geoffrey Rippon; Charles Saatchi; Sir Jimmy Savile; John Scarlett; Howard Schultz; Julia Smith; Janet Street-Porter; Margaret Thatcher; Alan Titchmarsh; Harold Walker; and Helen Willetts.ReviewNobody is better equipped to nominate the 50 people who have damaged this country most grievously in the past five decades, and [Quentin Letts] discharges his duty with flair and tracer precision. (The Spectator)Very Funny (Public Affairs)About the AuthorQuentin Letts is parliamentary sketch writer and theatre critic for theDaily Mail. A regular broadcaster on radio and television, he was formerly New York correspondent forThe Times and gossip columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He recently presented Radio 4's series 'What's The Point Of?' He lists his recreations, inWho's Who as 'gossip' and 'character defenestration'.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Jeffrey ArcherLong before Tony Blair even thought about ennobling any of the Labour Party's donors, there was talk of how John Major stamped his feet up and down on the carpets of 10 Downing Street and insisted, in the manner of Violet Elizabeth Bott until he was nearly sick, that Jeffrey Archer be made a peer. It was as bad a piece of work as Major did during his premiership and it was an early sign that places in the Upper House of Parliament were being handed out like spaces in an executive car park. Much criticism has been fired at Blair and the Labour Party for demeaning the House of Lords. Rightly so. But this flaky combo was not the first to push dodgy friends towards the Upper House. The Archer appointment was equally troubling. That the Lords did not really take off as a political scandal until 2006 - some fourteen years after Archer first settled his bottom on the red leather benches - shows how long the British Establishment is allowed to get away with rank rum behaviour before being shamed into higher standards of conduct. Jeffrey Archer should never have been allowed anywhere near the Lords. He was a political liability. In his earliest days as a politician he was spotted by a laconic, slightly mournful man of the world called Humphrey Berkeley MP. I knew Humphr