Positive reviews...

Freedom to Freelance has been positively reviewed by Gail Purvis for AccountingWeb.

See: http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/article/ir35-review-practical-contractors-and-personal-freelance/530510

She writes :

'Freedom to Freelance' writes Philip Ross (contributor to Shout99.com) is a story of how a group of plucky IT contractors banded together and took on the government. It is a story of sacrifice and endeavour, of valour and of many great deeds and successes - one of the first examples of crowd funding High Court drama, the biggest post-1997 lobby on parliament, which many have described as the world's first flash mob and first e-petition presented to parliament, and perhaps the only ever on-air apology transmitted on Newsnight. 

It also covers two campaigns: That of the IR35 direct confrontation and the second use of more gentle persuasion and diplomacy to defeat fast track visas.

This is a first person account “my story of my time with the PCG and considers the period between 1999 and 2002, at the heart of the campaign, when I believed in the cause." The biggest irony of IR35 is that a poll taken just after its release, showed the majority of those affected had elected new Labour in 1997.

The other sad, but somehow inevitable irony as is often the case with revolutions, the group turned on itself - and the leading figures ultimately replaced by more establishment characters and attempts at rewriting history.

The chapters cover the forming of the PCG, the parliamentary battle, the judicial review, political engagement, fast track visas, agency regulations, appeal and case law, thermidor and the epilogue  - 10 years on when Ross now is a UCL visiting lecturer and works for enterprise architecture consultancy Alpheus in which he is shareholder. No longer a contractor, he still claims commitment to the cause.

With an Appendix of Nominations for the New Statesman Award emails collected at the time; 56 brief biographies in the Who's Who, and a 22 organisation glossary in Freedom and a last chapter on Growing your Business in theHandbook all a reviewer can conclude is that future editions of both invaluably interesting books should indulge themselves by hiring a librarian contractor or freelance and creating indexes!