Keep away from our money. A cashless society is one where we lose control

cash use is on the rise in Britain, but that this is explicitly against the wishes of our betters. “Blue sky thinkers” regularly demand that physical money be curtailed or even abolished. The arguments are grimly utilitarian: it’ll enable governments to take on tax evaders, and central banks to slash interest rates to below zero (with savers being unable to withdraw everything and stash it under the bed). And it’ll be so convenient, so why resist?

At the risk of sounding alarmist, Shriver’s imagined future is all too possible. It’s hardly surprising that among those countries with the greatest attachment to physical cash – particularly the Germanic nations of central Europe – are those that have suffered the most disastrous experiments in economic policy.

And this is a social issue as much as an economic one, at the heart of what it means to be free. Without physical money, one more area of our lives can no longer be private or anonymous. Without coins and notes, a few more people, often older and poorer, will be swept aside by technological change, unable to opt out of what some like to think of as inevitable. It may be harder to evade taxes, but much easier to fall victim to cyber fraud.

Most worryingly, with our money solely stored electronically and liable to confiscation if a government so chooses, it implies a further erosion of the principle that our property is ours by right, not under society’s sufferance. We’ve so far avoided following Norway’s mad lead of making details of everyone’s income available online. We reject the Left’s argument that tax cuts are a “cost” to the Treasury rather than people being allowed to keep more of their own money. Hands off our cash.