THE SUNDAY TIMES published their 2014 Rich List recently, 116-pages of jammy sods considerably richer than you.
You only have to look at the success of sites like BuzzFeed to realise we’ll read any old crap, given it’s in a list.
The annual magazine supplement profiles the UK’s top 1000 and Ireland’s top 250 richest individuals and families, primarily to shift over 100k more copies of the paper, but also to make you feel like a peasantry bottom-feeding mud-muncher.
The UK is now home to more billionaires per person than any other country in the world. What recession? The world’s rich have never been richer.
Of course, the real question is why we (the mud-munchers), really care? The disparity between the super-rich and the poverty-stricken is so vast - nearing pre-WWI levels - that it makes you question why we (the mud-munchers) would buy the News International paper and drop £2.50 into Rupert Murdoch’s pocket (worth $14 billion himself) for publishing a list of people equally as grotesquely rich as him.
The rich have never been richer, yet the use of UK food banks have rocketed
It's perverse really. Especially if you consider the wealth of the top 1,000 has doubled since the onset of the financial crisis, while food bank charities across the country are reporting a rise in the number of users. North West food banks are the busiest of the lot.
Perhaps it’s our innate fascination with lists that makes us buy-in to all this. You only have to look at the success of sites like BuzzFeed, with pearlers like ’12 Reasons Sam The Cat With Eyebrows Should Be Your New Favourite Cat’ to realise that we’ll read any nonsense, given it’s in an easy to digest list format and means we won't have to do any real work for ten minutes or so.
Perhaps it’s more simply our desire for a hierarchy. To be told of our place in society.
Perhaps we should stop banging on, attempting to rile the proletariat to tear the whole system down and just publish the bloody list. Because, in all honesty, would the rest of us turn into Mother Dalai Gates given the opportunity to be stinking rich?
So here’s the North West’s richest. The gits:
1. The Duke of Westminster, £8,500m (up £700m on last year - 10th nationally)
2. John Whittaker, £2,300m (no change - 42nd nationally)
3. Tom Morris, £2,050m (up £830m - 46th nationally)
4. Simon, Bobby and Robin Arora, £1,400m (up £300m - 62nd nationally)
5. Lord Grantchester and the Moores family, £1,200m (no change - 78th nationally)
6. Robin Sheppard, £1,040m (no change - 94th nationally)
7. John Hargreaves, £1,000m (no change - 98th nationally)
8. Fred and Peter Done, £950m (up £100m - 107th nationally)
9. Peter Jones, £717m (up £10m - 141th nationally)
10. Sir Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell, £710m (up £30m - 142nd nationally)
Macca reacts to hearing Nancy has £150m of her own dosh
11. Lord Alliance, £650m (up £250m - 155th nationally)
12. Trevor Hemmings, £625m (up £15m - 164th nationally)
13. Michael Oliver, £608m (up £91m - 166th nationally)
14. Philip Day, £600m (up £300m - 170th nationally)
15. The Walker family, £520m (up £20m - 193rd nationally)
16. The Warburton family, £500m (no change - 199th nationally)
17. John Roberts, £410m (debut - 246th nationally)
18. Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, £405m (up £30m - 250th natioanlly)
19. Henry Moser, £350m (no change - 273rd nationally)
20. Michael Oglesby, £325m (down £15m - 290th nationally)
Home Bargains has made the Aroras a fortune
The North West constitutes the largest concentration of billlionaires outside of London, with seven families living or with businesses based in the region (London has 72).
The Duke of Westminster's wealth is centred on Mayfair and Belgravia in London, but his family seat is at Eaton Hall, Cheshire, and he owns significant parts of Liverpool city centre.
Tom Morris saw his wealth top £2billion this year off the back of the continued success of his Home Bargains chain of discount stores, while the Arora brothers have also seen huge gains of £300m in the past 12 months through their discount chain, B&M Retail.
Sir Paul McCartney has made the top 10 of the North West Rich List, now worth £710m alongside his third wife Nancy Shevell, whose £150m wealth from her father’s American trucking operation has added a considerable chunk to their combined total.
(The list is based on identifiable wealth, including land, property, other assets such as art and racehorses, or significant shares in publicly quoted companies. It excludes bank accounts, to which the paper has no access)
More from the Sunday Times Rich List 2014 here.
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Prince Charles and the Duke of Westminster
