The Berlusconi Bonus

On the very day he applies for his Berlusconi Bonus - a free pass for the already wealthy, allowing them to completely disregard the law - young billionaire Adolphus Hibbert has his life of unthinking consumerist bliss cruelly snatched from him.

He is forced to contemplate politics, philosophy and history when Captain Hieronymous Younce recruits him into the secret police to spy upon his own lawyer, a suspected dissident and intellectual. In the 'End-of-History' Age all knowledge of past events and the arts is ruthlessly suppressed, even as economic freedoms are made absolute.

Echoing 1984, The Berlusconi Bonus satirises almost every aspect of our modern political world, from Blair's "New Labour" Thatcherism and Berlusconi's strong-arming of his country's constitution to Francis Fukuyama's assertion that perfection has been achieved and history is at an end.