Four Chancellors and a Funeral: How to Lose a Country in Ten Days

The sequel nobody wants. After a decade of the Tories, could it get any worse? Spoiler – it does.

Towards the end of 2021, Britain had been frogmarched into an escalating series of surreal calamities. Brexit was a disaster, the NHS was in crisis, the government was bathed head-to-toe in impropriety, senior Tories were still acting as though the public purse was their personal feed-trough, and the air crackled with anger about PartyGate. All of which led to an inglorious start to 2022: the year the UK saw two monarchs, three prime ministers and four chancellors.

From Boris Johnson, who trashed our international reputation and handed billions to his mates so they could ineptly fight a pandemic while he stayed at home, shagging and acting as a super-spreader; to Liz Truss, a drive-by prime minister who managed to kill off the queen and crash the economy in a single week. And now we’re led by Rishi Sunak, who doesn’t know how to use a credit card, drives a pretend car, and grinningly promises even more poverty.

Four Chancellors and a Funeral delivers more of Russell Jones’s signature scathing wit, combining a detailed historical record of 2021 and 2022, with acerbic commentary, all of it leavened by jokes at the seemingly endless maelstrom of failures, nincompoops and hypocrisies.

‘With scathing wit and insight, Russell Jones delivers the hilarious and terrifying no-holds-barred roast we’ve all been waiting for’ Peter Stefanovic, journalist and broadcaster

‘As ever, Russell’s writing is just the job if you’re in need of a laugh AND your blood pressure is dangerously low . . .’ Mitch Benn, comedian and writer

‘A merry romp through a deeply unmerry time! Made me laugh, made me weep, made me wonder if it was too late to burn my TV and pretend none of it had happened’ Otto English, writer and journalist

‘I do not know how Russell Jones creates his magnificently witty, acerbic almanacs of Tory idiocy without being driven round the bend by what he is summarising . . . What a dazzling keeper-of-record Jones is. Honestly, further praise is superfluous’ Howard Goodall, composer and broadcaster

‘Russ ties the many misadventures of Tory rule in a brilliantly neat bow. A first-class thesis on why there ought to be a better way of doing things’ Tom Gray, founding member of Gomez