What do Princess Diana and Tim Westwood have in common? It sounds like the start to a bad joke but the right answer is that both have been accused of contributing to Britain's 'downfall'.

The Daily Mail is this week serialising a book by Quentin Letts which points the finger at fifty seemingly scrupulous characters for the 'demise' of Great Britain. Here, in no particular order, are twenty examples:

1. Jeffrey Archer: "His crassness, his boastfulness, his social mountaineering, his pushiness, his sheer screamingly obvious dodginess, were traffic signs to his character and should have prevented him getting as far as he did."

2. Howard Schultz: The man who put world domination on the agenda for coffee chain Starbucks.

3. Tim Westwood: "Middle-aged Westwood is a Radio 1 disc jockey who has so immersed himself in the music of black rappers and American-style hip-hoppers that he has started to talk like one -  and is leading thousands of young listeners down the same ill-guided alley."

4. Tony Blair: "There is a good, rough word to describe Tony Blair but we had better not write it out here in full."

5. Paul Burrell: "After Burrell, we expect less of close confidants. And we are less surprised by his sort of treachery."

6. John Prescott: "Prescott, a revolting specimen with the manners of a flatulent caveman, demeaned our public life."

7. Sir Jimmy Saville: "There are other examples - Tony Blackburn, Sir Paul McCartney, Keith Chegwin, Chris Evans - of egomaniac idiots whose refusal to submit to age infects our society with immaturity."

8. Richard Dawkins: "Anti-religionist Dawkins, the best-known English dissenter since Darwin, is the merciless demander of provable fact."

9. Janet Street-Porter: "This ageing non-revolutionary helped to mould a London media elite who are now hooked on youth."

10. Sir Alex Ferguson: "A man who has helped to drive the fun out of football and who often seems to forget that the contest between two teams of 11 lads is merely a game, not a struggle between right and wrong."

11. Richard Brunstrom: "The traffic-crazed Chief Constable of North Wales Police has pursued motorists to the point of frenzy."

12. Margaret Thatcher: "It was in the pursuit of the trade unions - specifically, Arthur Scargill's National Union of Mineworkers - that Mrs Thatcher did lasting damage to our country."

13. Princess Diana: "The sorry truth is that this adored concept, this packaged, airbrushed Diana, weakened our society. She made us more neurotic."

14. Charles Saatchi: "Does Saatchi never stop to consider what it does to the nurse or the soldier on a basic wage to see such fecklessness as Tracey Emin's 'Everyone I Have Ever Slept With' hailed as a masterpiece?"

15. John McEnroe: "McEnroe helped spread bad sportmanship to a generation of youngsters."

16. Stephen Marks: The man behind FCUK is blamed for "contributing to the coarseness of language in public."

17. Frank Blackmore: The man who introduced the mini-roundabout to Britain's roads. Enough said.

18. Alan Titchmarsh: "Alan is 'doing his bit for the environment' by joining something called the 'Saving Planet Earth' project. But after so much Alan Titchmarsh, will it want to be saved? Or will it plead for euthanasia?"

19. Richard Beeching: Behind the closure of a long list of railway stations. "To this day, there are traffic jams and bottlenecks which can be traced to Beeching."

20. Edward Heath: Heath was blamed for creating a climate of political terror about immigration.

Who would you put at the top of your list?

You can read excerpts from Quentin Letts' book on the Daily Mail website below:

One to twenty 

Twenty-one to thirty-five