Fleeced!

Over the past decade some £3 trillion - equivalent to £50,000 for every person in Britain - has been taken from us by the ruling elites. Half was wasted in a splurge of poorly-managed public spending in the ''boom'', while the other half evaporated in the ''bust'' - siphoned off by city bonuses, vaporised by a collapse in pension savings and extorted to bail out the banking sector.

In their explosive new book, David Craig and Matthew Elliott trace where the money has gone and who has become richer as a result.

They name and shame the ''guilty'': the incompetent bureaucrats that fail to deliver the services the taxpayer deserves; the multitude of ineffective regulators and watchdogs; the politicians that have betrayed our democracy and enriched themselves; and the self-serving and arrogant city bankers. Moreover, they calculate the enormous debt that awaits the British taxpayer as a result of our rulers'' avarice and economic mismanagement.

Fleeced! charts the greatest impoverishment and tax swindle of the public in British history.