Good lord, I have just escaped a thorough thrashing at the hands of Edward Blomfield-Smith, blue-blooded doyen of the London private banking recruitment aristocracy, by the very skin of my teeth. It was worse than being prorogued.

My article last week, Top of the Toffs, on the burgeoning wealth of our upper classes irked the normally imperturbable Edward, specifically when it came to the reference to the Barnard family, which I thought could be counted among the ueber-rich aristos like the Westmins...