A prolonged whinge by a spiteful and self-pitying blockhead is on course to become the highest-grossing book of all time. Prince Harry’s solipsistic memoir Spare — I can’t help feeling that Spare Us would have summarized the public mood better — sold 1.4 million copies on the day of its publication.

It annoys me when badly written books —The Da Vinci Code, say, or Fifty Shades of Grey — do well. This is not because I begrudge the authors of their success (far from it) but because it undermines my belief in the wisdom of crowds and the appeal of mass democracy.