devolution

Another key networking event is the Ireland Funds Dinner where the first and deputy first ministers held centre stage last year, marking the return of devolution.

Issues include High Speed 2 rail, which the Welsh government says should generate a financial benefit for Wales, and on the devolution of the Crown Estate.

Its chief executive officer, Antonia Jennings, said: "To be able to compete with the likes of Paris, New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong, we need greater fiscal devolution."

Plaid Cymru MP Llinos Medi, who led the calls for the devolution in the House of Commons, told MPs that "the people of Wales should own and benefit from their own natural resources".

But the story’s many twists and hair’s-breadth escapes — its devolution into a Holocaust picaresque — lack the foundation of historical truth that undergirded the writer’s debut effort.