Customer Reviews

Prime Minister: A Novel

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The events around the UK election in May 2010 give this book by John Stewart, a real-time edge. The reader is swung along as controversial measures are introduced and voted by parliament all over the space of a few weeks under a national unity government amidst an economic crisis involving a debt mountain, rising home repossessions, negative equity, etc. The somewhat startling theme is of how to pay for society's needs and reduce income tax all during an international banking crisis. The author has three main themes: `free credit' `community fund' and `tax-shift'. The idea is that productive investment (initially just infrastructure) is to be funded by government created interest-free money (leaving banks out of the loop) and conventional taxes are to be cut. Shortfalls in public receipts due to the tax cuts are to be re-funded from an untapped `community fund', achieving the `tax-shift'. This fund has been revealed through a single letter out of the blue from a publisher to a young MP who shortly after becomes the new unity government Prime Minister. The fund is piled high with value and its existence arises from the presence of the community. The more valued the community the more dense - and taller - the buildings on the valuable land which is the actual repository of the wealth. The wealth is currently going into private hands although being steadily enhanced by such as public infrastructure projects that are currently paid for by ordinary working people's taxes. The value is to be taken for the community by a `location levy' charged on every plot of land. The buildings carry no levy and land ownership stays as it is. The free credit is to be secured on the back of the enhancement it brings to the community fund of land value.

Property vested interests battle through the unfolding events to protect their corner as the House of Commons vote looms. A somewhat older-worldly restrained romance threads through the plot and the fact that women always seem to make the tea and coffee is a bit 1950's ! But such non-modern incidentals do not detract from the book's readability and high importance as a fascinating polemic on the burdensome stupidity of taxes on labour and creativity whilst letting vast community-inspired wealth get off scot-free. It attacks this injustice at the heart of our public financing arrangements - and as such is unashamedly rooted in moral principles. For those already committed to the cause this book brings a refreshing view to familiar ideas, with its new ways of expression, new angles to familiar themes and its gradual revelation of the issues among a convincing cast of the type of modern character we see regularly in the media. This novel deserves a high rating for its boldness and success in giving an otherwise rather academic topic a somewhat surprising appeal. I was sceptical that the subject could be given the justice it deserves through a novel, but I was wrong. A book that anyone with an open mind should enjoy and learn from.

Apart from receiving a free copy for review purposes, the reviewer has no financial interest in the success of this book.