"You saw that maniac. We've got to go along with him otherwise he destroys the country. It's as plain and as simple and as stark as that. We've no choice."

The outspoken Welshman is right about having no choice, of course, but quite wrong about the maniac.

"We have a hung parliament of weakness and mediocrity that lacks the drive, initiative, and courage to tackle the country's problems with zeal and determination."

In this crackingly-paced yarn the future does indeed seem very bleak for Britain. The future painted is one of desperate poverty, where even cleanliness of the streets has gone out the window due to economic hardship, and the people depicted all seem keen on power and are quite ruthless in their attempts to obtain it.

The somewhat graphic demise of a character when he's sliced up by a boat's propellers is rather gruesome and it's Turtling, more than Kettling, when the police wade in to break up rampant street riots. The writing has that clipped Britishness to it that so illustrates a work from this side of the Atlantic, and though the ending isn't overly surprising, it's still most, most satisfying.