Outraged at the market economic policies adopted by their university, Professor Vinnie McVittie and his colleagues in the Podiatry department kidnap a senior academic, Dr. Malcolm Moon, in protest. Initially they have little hope of success, particularly as their captive refuses to be freed from his new — and improved — life on the North Wales farm where he is being held. However, the chance coincidence of the interests of the gutter press, the Pantymwyn branch of Welsh Freedom Fighters, and a Prime Minister struggling for re-election combine to ensure a minor campus story escalates into cataclysmic national proportions