A book Fred will want to shred

Michael Gove and Ed Vaizey were leading the government’s representation at the launch party last night for Iain Martin’s book Making It Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the men who blew up the British economy. David Davis and Liam Fox were also leading the laughter at the Travellers Club as Martin explained that many tried to warn him against writing his study of the financial crisis. Not only because he was about to upset some very rich people but also from a future sales point of view as apparently ‘by then the economy would have been sorted out.’

That was not the only problem along the way either, as the publisher revealed:

‘The real concerns were with the cover; despite his role as the lead protagonist, it was universally agreed quite early on, without much market research, that a photo of Fred Goodwin on the cover was not going to shift very many books.