{"title":"Mick Hamer","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"most-deliberate-swindle-book-mick-hamer-9781910453421","title":"Most Deliberate Swindle","description":"'That London could have had electric buses a hundred years ago is extraordinary enough, but as Mick Hamer recounts with great panache, the reason it didn't is even more extraordinary. This is a great tale, expertly told' - Michael Palin  On a warm April morning in 1906 a crowd of expectant correspondents from London's leading newspapers gathered at the Hotel Cecil in the Strand to view the new wonder of the age - the electrobus.  This clean, green machine was gearing up to take on the noisy, polluting petrol vehicle, which was just starting to replace the horse-drawn omnibus and surely had the potential to be a game changer in terms of what it would mean to Londoners and other city-dwellers who were already choking on petrol fumes.  Disastrously though, the London Electrobus Company was in the grip of a gang of greedy and fraudulent financiers, who systematically conned shareholders, looted the company's coffers and drove the promise of the electrobus into the ground. Rammed with fascinating characters and vividly capturing the Edwardian era, A Most Deliberate Swindle uncovers one of the biggest frauds in history and reveals why a century later this historic scam has left us all gasping for breath.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49550442660113,"sku":"GOR008976814","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50964434813201,"sku":"GOR014150765","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51682144059665,"sku":"GOR010911413","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1910453420.jpg?v=1750964435"},{"product_id":"wheels-within-wheels-book-mick-hamer-9780710210074","title":"Wheels within Wheels","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49555912261905,"sku":"GOR003707780","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53362367627537,"sku":"GOR001819168","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0710210078.jpg?v=1751009916"},{"product_id":"great-tramways-conspiracy-book-mick-hamer-9781036143343","title":"The Great Tramways Conspiracy","description":"Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of London to witness the royal opening of the London County Council’s first electric trams in 1903. The people loved their trams. But trams had powerful enemies.  In the 1920s the tram-haters became increasingly vociferous. Articles and letters in the press condemned trams as old-fashioned and called for them to be scrapped.  Over the past seven years, Mick Hamer has scoured the archives to uncover evidence of a campaign that was meant to be forever hidden. The Great Tramways Conspiracy reveals the untold story of a strategy to smear trams as obsolete and drive them off the roads.  The campaign employed a propaganda technique now known as astroturfing, which gives the impression of a grassroots movement while promoting vested interests. Commonly found on social media today, a century ago, hired hacks bombarded the letters columns of newspapers to get the message across.  Bankrolling this campaign were the oil companies – and lurking even deeper in the shadows were the security services, which used their propaganda expertise to provide the campaign organisers with handy hints.  The incessant labelling of trams as obsolete became common currency and the mud stuck. In 1931 the Royal Commission on Transport, which was dominated by tram-hating motorists, called for trams to be scrapped.  There was no pushback. The tram industry was riven by internal dissent, and the motor industry assiduously courted the malcontents. In the face of this onslaught the tram industry capitulated and the country’s tramways closed.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53026371633425,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53026371698961,"sku":"NGR9781036143343","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781036143343.jpg?v=1769683285"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-mick-hamer.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}