Book description
In this EU election year, it's time for people across Europe to look
at what really goes on in Brussels in our name.
It has been estimated that the EU costs us around £1,000 billion a
year - an incredible £2000 for every man, woman and child in Europe.
So what do we get for our money? Politicians and administrators
selflessly working to bring us efficient government? Well-targeted
regulations that promote economic prosperity? A safe and free society?
A well-protected environment? Help for people in poorer countries?
Or is our money being squandered by a self-serving euro-elite of
unaccountable politicians and incompetent bureaucrats, or else
devoured in a feeding frenzy of fraud and corruption where a few lucky
insiders become unimaginably rich at our expense? And is the tsunami
of regulation pouring out of Brussels in reality strangling industry,
destroying jobs, restricting personal freedom, desecrating the
environment and further impoverishing the developing world?
Using their extensive network of insider sources, David Craig and
Matthew Elliott smash through the secrecy and disinformation that are
the Brussels hallmark to reveal what our European rulers are really
getting up to. The result is a horrifying story of bureaucracy,
hypocrisy and kleptocracy - and how we are all suffering as a result.
David Craig has spent most of his career as a management
consultant working for and competing against some of the world's best
and worst management and IT systems consultancies. He has helped to
sell consulting to almost 100 organisations in 15 countries across
Europe, Asia and the US, as well as the British public sector. He is
the author of the controversial bestsellers Rip-Off! The Scandalous
Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine,
Plundering the Public Sector, and, most recently,
Squandered: How Gordon Brown is Wasting Over One Trillion Pounds
of Our Money. He has an MA from Cambridge and an MBA from
Warwick Business School.
Matthew Elliott is Co-Founder and Chief Executive of the TaxPayers'
Alliance, the UK's most high-profile campaign group. He is a Fellow of
the Royal Society of Arts and sits on the Advisory Committee of the
New Culture Forum. His last book was The Bumper Book of Government
Waste 2008 (Harriman House).
