Michael Burton

My latest and third book The Lost Decade: Britain from Bust to Brexit, which analyses why the UK voted to leave the EU and the link between the recession and the Leave vote, is now published by Palgrave Macmillan. My previous book The Politics of Austerity: A Recent History (Palgrave Macmillan) looks at how the UK, the USA, the eurozone, the Baltic States, Canada and Sweden managed their public finances during economic downturns in the past 40 years.

I am former editor of The MJ (Municipal Journal) and now editorial director of The MJ Group along with its other associated local government products and titles such as The MJ Awards, MJ Future Forum,mj.co.uk and Localgov, which are all part of the Hemming Group, publishers and event organisers. I am also a board director of Hemming Group Ltd.

I have been writing and reporting about local government and the wider public sector for over 25 years. and speak at and chair numerous public sector conferences. I distilled my experiences into my first book The Politics of Public Sector Reform from Thatcher to the Coalition, published in June 2013 by Palgrave Macmillan and available on Amazon and other sites. The book looks at how UK governments since 1979 have driven through reform, where it has worked and where it has not, and whether the public sector is in a fit state to face the next decades of rising demand and constrained budgets.