These familiar questions are now far more topical and urgent. The peaks of both government and finance have become far more concentrated and isolated; checks and balances have become much weaker; the costs of wrong decisions have often proved disastrous to the public.

Anthony Sampson has spent forty years dissecting the power-structure, with unique access to people at the top, to produce his best-selling Anatomies of Britain. Now in this intensely topical book, he surveys a much more troubled scene with more anger and impatience. He looks at the whole panoply of power, from an embattled Number Ten to the murky intelligence spooks, from corporate boardrooms to banks and pension funds. Everywhere he talks to the people who really know their inside workings.

Who Runs This Place? is written not just for those inside the Westminster Bubble. It is addressed in fresh and vivid terms to those who need to understand the institutions and careers they are choosing, and the bosses who will influence their whole future. And it comes at a time when the British people are clamouring to comprehend the secretive groups that pull the levers, behind the facades. It is essential reading.