Built on a Lie

''This is a must read!'' Vince Cable, former leader of the Liberal Democrats

''Reads like a rip roaring tale of a corporate high wire act'' John McDonnell, former Shadow Chancellor

''Should be sold with a bottle of blood-pressure pills'' Edward Lucas, The Times

The proud owner of a sprawling ¿14m estate in the Cotswolds, boasting a stable of eventing horses, a fleet of supercars and neighbouring the royal family, Neil Woodford was the most celebrated and successful British investor of his generation.

He spent years beating the market; betting against the dot com bubble in the 1990s and the banks before the financial crash in 2008, making blockbuster returns for his investors and earning himself a reputation of ''the man who made Middle England rich''.

But, in 2019, after a stream of poorly-judged investments, Woodford''s asset management company collapsed, trapping hundreds of thousands of rainy-day savers in h