I learnt last night that the Ministry of Defence has paid £150,000 to the publishers Quercus to buy up copies of Toby Harnden’s new book called Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards in Afghanistan. Toby was supposed to be on my LBC Book Club last week but had to pull out because the MoD were trying to injunct the book due to “security concerns”.

So agreement has been reached that means that the publishers will make some minor changes the manuscript so the book can be published next week.

Now, for £150,000 you’d think Quercus had printed a huge number of copies. The unit print cost for a book like this would be somewhere around £1.20-£2 depending on the print run. I am told the print run was 24,000 – quite substantial and ambitious for a book like this. I would estimate the unit print cost to be £1.50. Clearly there are some other minor costs in having to reprint the book – typesetting amendments etc, but quite what other costs are involved I can’t quite work out.

The reprint will have a higher unit cost due to it having to be done very quickly, but even so, it is difficult to see how Quercus could demand a unit fee of £6.25 from the MoD. And it is even more difficult to see how the MoD could justify paying such a fee, although having seen today’s Sun front page, which reveals the MoD are paying £22 for a 65p lightbulb, anything is possible.

The fact is, the MoD have rolled over and used taxpayers' money in a disgraceful way. I don’t blame Quercus for screwing as much money out of them as possible, but whoever at the MoD agreed this £150,000 fee should be fired. It’s twice the amount it should have been.

Tags: Ministry of Defence, Toby Harnden