This review will be an all-round disappointment. It will, and indeed should, disappoint David McWilliams. He deserves no less. But it will also, I fear, disappoint readers of Literary Review, thirsters for knowledge as they are. Because I cannot begin to describe what the author’s argument might be, or indeed why this book exists at all. I think that either Mr Simon or Mr Schuster must have nodded off when the manuscript came in. 

Many people, including my late mother, have uttered the wise saw ‘if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.’ Google tells me that the fount of this wisdom is a rabbit called Thumper in the film Bambi. That seems a doubtful source, but let it pass. So what nice words would Thumper have found to say about Money?

Well, to start with, it will only set you back £25, when hardbacks of this kind are increasingly converging on a £30 price point. So if you choose to read it you will have a fiver left for a restorative glass of wine at the end of your ordeal. But