They're all loaded. Rich, isn't it?

Britain's richest 1,000 people have just been named. And a greater parade of undeserving, overvalued, morally bankrupt, socially deficient, creepy scheming pip-squeaks has rarely been seen.

Now some might suggest that this opinion is merely the all-consuming envy of a bitter malcontent. And they'd be right.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of people on the Sunday Times' Rich List who it would be easy to dislike even if they were poor. Their obscene wealth makes it compulsory.

Take Shirley Porter, for example. Found guilty of gerrymandering, she is still worth £70 million. But at least her part in the homes-for-votes scandal means she is too embarrassed to flaunt her gold Clubcard around Tesco's any more. She now lives in Tel Aviv.

Then there's Michael Flatley, the Oirish dancer. His ability to fling his two Flatley feet around like a man wearing electric underpants has earned him £50 million. Goodness knows what he'd be worth if he could move his arms as well.

Unkempt Mancunian Noel Gallagher gains £25 million for recycling Beatles tunes and Chris Evans is now worth £30 million for satisfying the public's appetite for arrogant inanity. In his case, affluence is next to effluence.

The Rich List enables us to get into a strop about the inequity of life, but it does serve a secondary purpose. In Jerry Maguire's phrase, it shows us the money. The table maps out how and where Britain's wealth is being created.

And it is a depressing tale, geograph-ically, socially and economically.

Geographically, it reaffirms the south east of England as greed central. Nearly half the 1,000 names live in the Home Counties. Socially, the story is just as predictable. A mere 71 women are included, among them the Queen, who is scraping by on £250 million. Only one black man makes it, and before the Metropolitan Police raid his house looking for drugs they should know that Carl Cushnie is a financier.

The economic news is not much more heartening. Sure, the number of aristocrats on the list is falling, but that is only because their inherited pile looks puny next to the share-fuelled fortunes of modern capitalists.

Judging by this league table, our wealth is based on decidedly shaky foundations. One hundred years ago, the top 20 richest people included manufacturers of beer, ship building, even sewing thread. Today money is made from the media, our insatiable desire to shop, and the Internet.

Local cash creators are perfect examples. Ken Morrison, squire of Myton Hall, near Knaresborough, has seen his worth expand quicker than his supermarket chain. But he still has a long way to go to catch Lord Sainsbury, up there at number two in the list. Eddie Healey, from Hull, co-created the Meadowhall monster mall with North Yorkshire's most rampant Euro-sceptic Paul Sykes. Their combined wealth is a shop-til-you-drop £800 million.

Sykes has since moved into cyberspace. And the Rich List is full of newcomers who have become instant millionaires thanks to the Internet. But perhaps the most surreal entry must be Anne Wood who owes her riches to the Teletubbies.

With the fight for Rover's survival and the sale of the Clyde shipyard, Britain's manufacturing base has all but vanished. Yesterday's car workers are today's cashiers. And where once we built ships, now we build web sites. Does anyone else feel uneasy?

York's portrait of Fergie has gone from the Mansion House. It has been wrapped up and banished from public display. Neither art lovers nor royalists will weep.

The Duchess of York continues to dream up ever tackier ways to grub a living, as part of an apparent crusade to embarrass the city whose name she bears.

It is only a shame we can't do to her what we have done to her picture.

14/04/99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.