Paul Johnson Abacus, 2024, PB, 320pp, £10.31, 978-0349144665

The daily news and our own experiences seem to signal that the UK is in decline. Services that had always seemed certain in our lives are under threat.

Benjamin Franklin did warn that ‘in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.’ Those taxes take nearly four out every ten pounds that we earn. The Government’s spending decisions are changing the way we live and the sort of society we live in. The future looks bleak. More than 1 trillion pounds was spent in 2023/2024. Where has all this money been spent? What has gone wrong?

Paul Johnson follows our tax money, explains where all the Government’s money comes from, where it goes to, how that has changed in the past, and how it needs to change in the future. Johnson is the Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a non-political organisation founded to check if the Government’s fiscal numbers …