What Have Charities Ever Done For Us?
Policy Press 2022
In co-authorship with Tania Mason
When the coronavirus pandemic took hold early in 2020, charities were among the first to respond to the resulting social and economic distress. But recent scandals and a more critical climate have overshadowed the vital role they play.
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What Have Charities Ever Done for Us? rebalances the debate, using case studies and interviews to illustrate how charities support people and communities, foster heritage and
culture and pioneer responses to crucial social, ethical and environmental questions.
It also sets the historical context, examines cases that have attracted criticisms, analyses the
political response and considers how the governance, transparency and independence of
charities could be improved. Charities at their best are the conscience of society and benefit
most people at some point in their lives. This book brings to life the breadth and depth of their
work and the contribution they make to social progress.
"As someone who has led charities for most of my professional life and has written and broadcast about the third sector, I only wish I had been able to read this authoritative, thoughtful and very engaging book when I was setting out; it would have made me not only a more informed commentator but also a better leader"
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Matthew Taylor
Chief Executive, NHS Confederation
Knee Deep In Dishonour: The Scott Report and Its Aftermath
Gollancz 1996
In co-authorship with Richard Norton-Taylor and Mark Lloyd
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When Saddam Hussein was still in power in Iraq, three businessmen were accused of breaking sanctions by selling weapons and weapons-related equipment to his regime, and when their trial collapsed the Conservative Government asked a senior High Court judge, Sir Richard Scott, to investigate the affair.
Four years later, in 1996, Scott produced 1,800 pages of dense legalese in five volumes, detailing the machinations of ministers, civil servants, middlemen and arms manufacturers as they sought ways to supply Saddam’s armoury while avoiding scrutiny by Parliament and the public.
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This book condenses the saga into 200 pages of summary and analysis that reveal the manoevering that went on in Whitehall and Westminster as the government at first tried to conceal what went on and later tried to justify it. When it came to a vote in Parliament, the government avoided censure by a single vote.
Tony Blair, then leader of the opposition, argued that the Scott Report had "made the case for a Freedom of Information Act absolutely unanswerable", and such an act became law in 2000, two years after he became prime minister.
“This is the report Sir Richard Scott should have written. It is short, clear and concise and gives an account of the arms-to-Iraq affair that should be required reading for anyone interest in public affairs and any student of the operations of modern British government”
Clive Ponting
New Statesman
“It lucidly and brilliantly takes us through the maze of acronyms that define the committee workings Scott investigated, showing precisely what Scott found, revealing the self-interested chaos that constitutes government”
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Peter Holland
The Guardian
Rotten Apple
Macmillan 1996
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Everyone knows that Brian Ruddock is a bent copper, with a nasty line in extortion and bullying. But no one dares to take him on. No one, that is, except rookie constable Victor Platt, who is humiliated by Ruddock and decides to get his own back, by fair means or foul.
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But his quest for revenge takes Victor into the violent world of London’s petty criminals, and very soon he’s out of his depth. Detective Inspector Judy Best is assigned to sort out the mess; she’s used to the villains being liars, but on this case she can’t even trust her own colleagues. Soon it’s not only Victor who’s out for revenge, and as the body count rises, Judy finds out what it means to stand in the way of a man like Ruddock.
“Strong language and a number of brutal scenes…a polished, competent novel”
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Andrew Mitchell
Lincolnshire Echo
One Dead Tory
Macmillan 1993
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John Bullock, the brash Tory leader of a London borough council, has pushed through a raft of spending cuts and thinks nothing of it when the local trade unionists organise a big demonstration outside the town hall. But when things turn nasty and the demonstrators invade the council chamber, Bullock is nowhere to be found. He went out to lunch, and hasn’t come back.
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The discovery of his body in the bushes of a chalk pit on the North Downs is made by newly promoted Detective Sergeant Judy Best when she’s out for her morning run. The post mortem reveals that his skull was fractured before he was dumped. The murder inquiry turns out to be far from simple, however. It involves sexual intrigue, blackmail and large-scale corruption. Judy finds herself up against a secret society that involves rich local businessmen, the higher echelons of the council, and the police force itself.
“A wickedly entertaining picture of political skulduggery”
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The Scotsman
“Makes British municipal politics look a little dirtier than pig wrestling and a lot more fund than the sack of Rome”
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New York Times
Dead Fit
Macmillan 1992
Coronet Paperback 1993
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WPC Judy Best works in East London, where the regeneration of the docklands has sparked a yuppie influx that brings tension to the streets and attracts the attention of criminals looking for a share of all the new money. So when a high-flying financial trader is found murdered in a bizarre fashion in an exclusive new gym, the first theory is that it’s just a robbery gone wrong: the victim was brash, arrogant, and given to boasting about his wealth.
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Judy and her boyfriend Clinton are also members of the club, so her interest in the investigation is more than just professional – not least because she recently fought off the victim’s unwelcome advances at a recent party. Soon Clinton becomes a suspect, and Judy finds herself in a nightmarish fight to clear him and get to the truth.
“Takes a well-placed swipe or two at the favoured sons of the Thatcher years…tense and dense”
Oxford Times
Empire Born
Hodder and Stoughton 1986
Coronet Paperback 1987
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When Michael Hope is murdered in a robbery in upcountry Kenya, the Minister of Tourism takes the matter most seriously: the culprits must be found. It is of only passing interest to the authorities that Michael has been killed in the country where he was born and brought up before returning to England at the time of independence.
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But for Michael’s wife and a British journalist send to cover the story, the killing leads to new information about the secretive Michael and how his work in the black communities of south London had led him into a personal crisis. They realise how two of his childhood friends in Kenya – one white, the other black – had crossed his path later in life. One may be implicated in the murder; the other, like Michael, was there at the Brixton riots. All three have been moulded and brought together by the demise of empire.
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Empire Born vividly portrays and links the last years of British rule, the disenchantments of independence and the post-colonial racial stresses in modern Britain.
“Succeeds, where many ‘Empire’ novels fail, in braving the myriad complications and subtleties of the legacy of colonialism”​
​Grace Ingoldby
New Statesman
“A whodunnit with a difference, Empire Born is a gripping story and a fascinating one for our present time”​
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Barbara Hamilton-Smith
Catholic Herald
Upperdown
Hodder and Stoughton 1985
Coronet Paperback 1986
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On a sunny morning in June, a bomb goes off at a posh boarding school, damaging the home of one of the masters, who stumbles out naked but uninjured. Was it an act of vengeance, the righting of personal wrongs – or something more? Detective Chief Inspector Albert Crump is assigned to the case and is all set to arrest the arrogant Charles Melfort, one of the senior boys at Upperdown.
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Crump soon realises, however, that it’s rather more complicated and one of his own team, the unpleasant Detective Sergeant Slicer, is involved in the affair, along with the Dutch au pair girl Elkie van Horning and several other boys and eccentric members of the school staff. He gradually realises that a welter of peculiar activities and motivations lie beneath the surface of Upperdown, leading to a nail-biting denouement.
“Well engineered and frothily amusing”​
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T J Binyon
Catholic Herald
“Puts a comic charge beneath police, press and the public school system”​
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Yorkshire Post