Time of Lies

Post-Brexit, post-fact Britain needs a new kind of Prime Minister. In 2020 it gets one: Bob Grant. As smart as he is uneducated, Bob will put bankers in prison, get young people out of debt and keep foreigners where they belong. Who needs stuffy old laws and traditions? The country is half delighted, half horrified. The ruling class – particularly Patrick Smath, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence – is determined to act, before Bob does something crazy like threaten a European capital with nuclear destruction. Patrick is a whip-sharp twenty-first century Etonian. Zack, Bob’s Guardian-reading brother, is a barely-in-work actor about to sink into alcoholic depression. Zack’s wife, Kathy, is a late-rising star in the Navy who struggles to see her own talents. Both of them are about to collide with Bob, Patrick and a shocking defence secret, kept buried by every Prime Minister since 1994. At stake: the future of democracy.