<p><b>''This is a must read!'' </b>Vince Cable, former leader of the Liberal Democrats<br><br><b>''Reads like a rip roaring tale of a corporate high wire act''</b> John McDonnell, former Shadow Chancellor <br><br><b>''Should be sold with a bottle of blood-pressure pills'' </b>Edward Lucas, <i>The Times </i><br><b><br>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. </b><br><br>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''.<br><br>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